Obscura: VPN that can't log your activity

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

A new VPN service, Obscura, is drawing attention for its “multi‑party relay” design that routes traffic through Obscura and then Mullvad, so no single provider can see both a user’s identity and their destination. Commenters weigh whether this offers meaningful privacy advantages over using Mullvad directly, raising concerns about Obscura’s U.S. jurisdiction, the possibility of collusion between the two parties, and the limits of VPNs against state-level surveillance and DPI. Broader themes include trust in VPN business models, the tradeoffs between privacy and anonymity, and ethical questions around supporting providers whose leadership backs controversial politics.

Product concept & architecture

  • Obscura is described as a two-hop “multi-party relay”: client → Obscura relay → Mullvad exit → internet.
  • Entry hop sees user IP but not destinations; exit hop sees destinations but not user IP.
  • Tunnel is WireGuard over QUIC “unreliable datagrams”; there’s an experimental TCP/TLS mode.
  • Clients are open source; server-side components are not discussed in detail.
  • Currently, Mullvad server public keys are fetched via Obscura; plan is to use Mullvad-signed keys in future.
  • Packet padding exists but is experimental and undocumented; implementation is being revised.

Comparison to Mullvad & other systems

  • Many note Obscura’s benefits (no logs, open-source clients, privacy focus) already exist in Mullvad.
  • Question: why use Obscura instead of Mullvad directly, especially since Mullvad is the sole exit provider and more established?
  • Obscura positions itself like Apple’s iCloud Private Relay for all traffic, with user-selectable exit locations and Mullvad as exit rather than CDNs.
  • Some say using Mullvad via another VPN (e.g., NordVPN, Tailscale exit nodes) is functionally similar; Obscura argues its design reduces payment correlation and adds QUIC obfuscation.

Trust, jurisdiction & politics

  • Concern: Obscura is US-based, so subject to secret orders and gagged logging; some claim this makes true privacy “basically impossible.”
  • Counterpoint: Sweden/EU also expanding surveillance; however, Mullvad’s no-logs stance has been tested during a search warrant where no customer data was seized.
  • Significant thread on Mullvad’s CEO financially supporting a far-right Swedish party; some abandon Mullvad for ethical reasons, others call this “purity politics” and see little operational impact.

Privacy, anonymity & logging claims

  • Marketing line “first VPN that can’t log activity” is challenged: many VPNs claim no logs.
  • Supporters clarify the claim: no single party can log a full mapping from user to destination; you’d need both Obscura and Mullvad to collude or be compromised.
  • Critics note Obscura controls the inner Mullvad credentials and key distribution, so a compromised or coerced Obscura could still deanonymize, unlike designs with stronger cryptographic separation (e.g., OHTTP/iCloud Private Relay).

Censorship resistance & DPI

  • Some doubt QUIC-based obfuscation helps in heavily censored regimes where QUIC is throttled or blocked; they request more detail.
  • Obscura points to research on QUIC being harder to block (with browser-side “chaos” protections), but acknowledges limitations and that real-world performance in places like Iran is unclear.
  • Ideas like multipath TCP/QUIC for traffic-shape diversity are discussed; trade-offs include performance issues and countries with single chokepoints.

UX, signup flow & payments

  • Site and messaging are generally praised, though some see clashing visual styles.
  • The email-less, randomized account-number signup is widely liked; Obscura uses a checksum to catch typos but cannot help if users lose the number.
  • FAQ suggestion that Bitcoin/Monero payments are more private is heavily criticized due to pervasive KYC and chain analysis; cash-like methods (as used by Mullvad) are viewed as more genuinely private.