A privacy VPN you can verify

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

SGX, TEEs, and Remote Attestation

  • SGX is central to the design; supporters call it “battle-tested” and describe how enclaves generate private keys, get attested by Intel, and embed that attestation into TLS certificates so clients can verify MRENCLAVE and Intel’s CA chain.
  • Critics note SGX is deprecated on consumer CPUs, has had multiple serious vulnerabilities, and may have had hardware keys leaked via physical attacks. Once a CPU’s seeds are exposed, its attestations can’t be trusted again.
  • Several commenters question how a client can be sure the attested enclave is the same instance handling VPN traffic, or that a malicious host isn’t proxying signatures from a legitimate enclave.

Limits of What SGX Can Prove

  • Multiple people stress SGX only protects what’s inside the enclave; the host OS and network stack can still:
    • Log decrypted traffic entering/leaving the enclave.
    • Correlate timing and packet flows (10ms batching is viewed as weak obfuscation).
    • Route each user through a dedicated enclave instance, defeating “mixing.”
  • Therefore, the scheme does not eliminate the need to trust the operator about traffic correlation and external logging.

Trust Model: Intel, Operators, and “No Trust Required”

  • “No trust required” messaging is heavily disputed:
    • You must trust Intel’s hardware, firmware, CA infrastructure, and willingness not to collude with governments or certify compromised configs.
    • SGX attestations only guarantee “blessed by Intel,” not mathematically provable non-tampering.
  • Some argue this is still defense-in-depth and strictly better than standard VPNs; others see it as ideal honeypot material for well‑resourced adversaries.

Founders, Jurisdiction, and Legal Risk

  • Many commenters focus on the founders’ previous high‑profile controversies (crypto exchange collapse, Freenode drama, prior VPN sale/merger) and say they won’t trust them with privacy, regardless of code.
  • Operating in the US, touting constitutional protections, is seen by some as a feature (strong consumer law), and by others as a liability (NSLs, Five Eyes, Snowden-era surveillance).

Payments, Anonymity, and Alternatives

  • Critiques of signup and crypto payment flows (email, name, ZIP prompts; bugs) contrast with praise for competitors that:
    • Accept Monero or cash-by-mail.
    • Run diskless/RAM-only servers, publish audits, or keep pricing simple.
  • Some prefer simpler threat models: Mullvad/IVPN/Proton, OVPN’s physical hardening, self‑hosted WireGuard/Algo, or multi-party/relay schemes over TEEs.