[jorvi]

That is exactly the point of public VPNs..

If I'm on a public VPN, I don't want anyone to know who is making the request, including the terminating IP.

Think about it. By your logic, VPNs shouldn't be used for torrents because VPNs shouldn't anonymize you to the terminating IP. Whereas they work gangbusters for that.

If you are talking about private VPNs.. Mullvad isn't one.

[charcircuit]

I think you are misreading his comment. He is saying that on a VPN it is standard behavior that if you visit site A and site B they will both see you connecting from the same IP and can infer you are potentially the same person.

[fragmede]

Site A and B have to collude in order to make that inference. Outside of Cloudflare, no one is colluding at that level.

[camgunz]

Plenty of people own more than one website. You're also forgetting about random site assets like web fonts, CSS, JavaScript CDNs, etc. etc.

[antonvs]

That would only be true if there were no ad networks.

But today’s internet is essentially a giant ad network.

[jorvi]

Then he is using the wrong terminology.

Privacy = hide what I am doing

Anonimity = hide who I am

If site A and site B share some backchannel, then they can share what I was doing on their site, but aside from "this person is on Mullvad endpoint A1", they can't infer who I am[0]. To those sites, I am anonymous but not private.

On the other hand, to my ISP, I am private but not anonymous. They can see a tunnel originating from my home IP to Mullvad, so they know exactly who is connecting to Mullvad. But they don't know what I am doing inside that tunnel or where it leads beyond Mullvad.

That is the whole crux of a public VPN. The ISP doesn't know who to tell who I am, and the sites (and other terminating IPs) don't know who to tell what I'm doing, because the VPN breaks the chain in both directions.

So, if you torrent a movie illegally, the movie studio can only send an angry letter to Mullvad about someone on endpoint A1 torrenting their movie at 22:34. If it were possible for them to tell your ISP that you downloaded something illegally (privacy, the what), your ISP would have to give your address to the movie studio for a settlement fine (anonimity, the who).

It is kind of hilarious I am at -3 when parent is still in the positive, when he is so utterly wrong. But that's modern HN for ya.

[0]Fingerprinting obviously can throw a spanner into that, but that has nothing to do with the VPN. And it can be mitigated.

[DrBenCarson]

Public VPNs only protect you from your ISP

[DaSHacka]

And, arguably more importantly, from the service you're using.