They didn't bring it to light, it was a user report posted on reddit. They merely investigated it further. Nothing against mullvad, it's a great vpn, but credit where credit is due.
The issue seems to be related to how Android falls back for DNS query, beneath the firewall of your choice. In a building, people do not walk from or through upper floors. They need to enter through the ground floor and then go up.
On the desktop it does. But on Android things are maybe different ? Not directly related but I remember (long time ago) wanting to tether from an Android phone with Mullvad VPN app in use, to a computer, only to find out that the Android defaults (In Android not in the Mullvad app) needed a button swiped to make it work correctly on the other device.
Only if your Android connection is set to automatic DNS. Additionally, they are assuming it is an OS bug. However, they also acknowledge that they had to fix something on their app to mitigate. I tried myself with Wireguard instead, killed the network access to it, and nothing ever left my phone, as Android immediately killed all connections due to the VPN always on feature.
So, I'm going to take their claim with a grain of salt until AOSP says something about this and denies or confirms the alleged bug.
I think the problem is Reddit user (who Mullvad cites) not knowing that the Private DNS feature in AOSP/Android defaults to Google or Cloudflare DNS, and that you need to set a custom DNS of your choice to prevent this.
AdGuard provides a whole list of DNS providers to pick from. Pick a hostname from DNS-over-tls row for any provider, remove the "tls://" part and enter the rest in Private DNS custom option.
If you do this, you'll be using the DNS you assign instead of using the VPN's DNS, as intended. That will make you stand out from the rest of the same VPN users, effectively affecting privacy.
Either stand out or let your ISP or Google/Cloudflare or VPN read all your domain visit queries. It is better to not let ISP or Big Tech decipher your internet history for obvious reasons.
I am not sure what off does. Might need to recheck Android documentation. But I remember the custom one definitely uses whatever you set, and nothing else. No Google/Cloudflare DNS.
For example, if you like AdGuard, you can just enter dns.adguard.com there.
Automatic on Android always falls back to Google or Cloudflare DNS in the same way systemd DNS resolving works. Or if that does not work, ISP is being sent whatever domain queries user is requesting directly. I am going off from connecting the dots between what I know about Private DNS from Android documentation, and what the Reddit poster did not mention who Mullvad cited in their blog post. I am assuming that the time gap between Android's killswitch turning off and on with always-on settings is giving time for DNS queries to go through (detected by Wireshark), and since the default DNS provider is almost never set by people on Android, this may be happening.
The amount of leaks iOS intentionally does, let alone the part where they tell you to use their own (not so) Private Relay feature, is enough to stick around on Android.
The one that irks me is how some apps that have already established a connection can ignore the VPN. I always wondered about that, like if I enabled my VPN, what happens to existing connections. One thing I couldn’t find is what apps can do this? If it’s third party apps, that’s pretty serious. But if it’s just Apple apps or default ones, that’s a far less of a concern seeing as Apple seems to bypass VPN anyway for its in-house wares.
You should treat Apple as a third party to your data. Apple is not your friend. No corporation is your friend. Apple is even worse than the average corporation.
LOL. They built the entire fucking OS. If they want to siphon my data, they can. Without anyone knowing. Also everything is linked to my Apple ID. So what’s the point? They already know everything and have tied it all together with my unique IDs, device serial numbers and the payment data associated. What’s the point the of running FaceTime over a VPN? They already know everything…
At some point you have to stay calm and think rationally.
Now if Twitter or some random app I downloaded from GitHub can bypass my VPN, then yeah, that’s a pretty big concern as they currently have nothing on me.
I’m going to ignore the “corpos aren’t your friend” because FUCKING DUUUHHHHHH
If you have sold your soul to Apple already, then that is not a problem. You may take this as offensive or factual, I do not care. Why? Because I use Android phones without a Google account. You may think, this person does not have a life, I do. But I also have a life. I use online groceries and use shopping sites through Firefox web browser. I have WhatsApp and Discord with lots of restrictions and a firewall with 400k+ domains blocked all the time.
How much data you consider okay to give away to corpos is up to you. However, understand that once you give away this or that data about you, there is no way to return back to an option or time where nobody had that data about you.
Yes, I am pretty anal about my privacy, security, anonymity and freedom. And I am shameless about it.
LOL. Just trying to take a reasoned take to the situation bro. Every OS siphons user data Einstein. Yes even Linux (distros like Ubuntu do). A VPN won’t save you. It’s cute you think adding a lock on your room’s door will keep people out of your house.
Every OS siphons user data Einstein. Yes even Linux (distros like Ubuntu do). A VPN won’t save you. It’s cute you think adding a lock on your room’s door will keep people out of your house.
You have a whole bunch of weird takes not based in reality. My life is not a room but my house that I can lock and control. A VPN does not work that way. And every OS does not spy. Ubuntu does not either. Windows and MacOS do, and it is possible to despyware Windows.
Also do you really think the travel comment is a successful gut punch? Try harder.
If you just have an iPhone and nothing else and treat it like a smart phone it is very easy to migrate over to android and vice versa. If you get invested in the apple ecosystem it might be hard to leave or use some other products that are gimped without an iPhone
Third party products will not work well with an iPhone as Apple makes sure that there products work best. Additionally, iphones have very bad SMS and MMS support.
Lmao. People really are just out there on the raggedy edge. The watch communicates with a shit ton of sensors and other tech only found on Apple devices. Also, last I checked, I can’t run an Android Watch on iPhone fully, there is always a slew of things that don’t work or kinda work. Maybe Apple didn’t want that experience for its users.
You need a Mac to build Apple apps because why in the actual fuck would you use a PC to do that!? What’s the point?
I’m not defending Apple as they clearly gate a lot of shit but the complaining about the dumbest shit ever doesn’t make them Nazis. Also, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, all of them are the same level of asshole. Big Tech is trash. This is not new news.
Same shit as with Apple on Android, basic functionality, nothing more.
So you blame Apple for Android having basic functionality with an aWatch but then blame Apple for a Samsung Watch having basic functionality on iOS? So it’s just Apple’s fault all the way around then?
I guess you also missed the part where I say all big tech is the same? And are all basically shit? Or you just didn’t read that far…
And Android runs a shit load of portable devices beyond phones.
Most handheld store scanners are Android based today. Inventory management devices (like warehouses have used since the nineties) used to be Palm-based, are largely Android now, because it's core is Linux. They don't have to run the standard Android shell, they can run their own.
I've used medical monitors that are Android based.
Well, yes, I prefer desktop. But you know, in some countries some people have nothing else than phones. I am glad that Mullvad has posted this and hopefully Google can fix the bugs soon.
Well, I didn't see the other comments till now, and wrote Upvoted as an alternative to Insightful which I was intending it to sound. I appreciated your comment because I think Google likely have their own priorities.
Well yea I understand. I just didn't know what else to say. I didn't want to just upvote and not reply because I don't want to ignore nice (no I'm not saying that upvoting me makes you nice) people in this toxic and hopeless world. In the contrary I want to promote them. Though nobody (probably even myself) will believe in it after everything I've done and said here for various reasons. I guess it's an imagine being sus moment
All fine. Your comment where you mentioned autistic suddenly made me "understand" the let-s-call-them misunderstandings in this thread. And I agree about the toxic world, but we're all in the same boat, so I'd say we may as well be nice to each other at least a few seconds per day. Sometimes small things can make a big difference.
I honesty don't understand the rudeness. What I said is unpopular as 8K monitors and I do think it can be downvoted but why being rude? I just don't want to participate in toxicity because then I become toxic too. Ignorance is the best in this case. And I use LineageOS that's based on Android btw
Realistically speaking, I'm not. Technically speaking, accusing people in what I do too may not be considered bad but that depends on the culture. Anyways I didn't mean to be rude when I made that original comment. I still don't understand how was it rude. I guess it's my English knowledge that sucks again
Well iOS does have its advantages but tbh there are no fully usable alternatives for Android now. Hopefully Linux will get better on phones because I feel like we do need an alternative at this point
Well, we live in right now, and right now, mobile Linux just isn't suitable for many people, and the hardware that actually supports mobile Linux is a whole other story. It's certainly not possible to just not have a phone at all anymore, either. Calyx, Graphene and Lineage are the current best options. To say someone is stupid for using these is, well, stupid.
I didn't say that people who use Android are stupid and neither I intended to. What I meant is that Android is really enshittificated now. "It's certainly not possible to just not have a phone" is another story. I think relying on phones too much hurts people and the world a lot but again that's a whole new story
Okay, but saying "Imagine using Android" paints a certain picture. And, yes, relying on phones is dangerous. It's not that it's impossible to live without a smartphone, it's that arbitrary systems have been put up in society that have created a large dependence on them.
That's nonsense. You can pretty much deal with any unrooted Android phone with Android 9 and above with this smartphone guide. https://lemmy.ml/post/128667
What does stock even mean? No "factory" shipped phone is going to be ideal for privacy and security. Stock to me means the custom Android build firmware that company shipped on the phone. As long as I am merely uninstalling programs, modifying permissions and firewalling the system, without rooting or unlocking it, it still is a stock factory phone. Within minutes I can return it to its "factory" status.
All things I use, besides JavaScript on websites and firmware, is basically open source.
I am lucky to use open protocols for communication only, as when deleting Facebook my friends were willing to use Matrix with me.
I can do many many compromises.
But still, I have OnePlus 6T with mobile Linux and absolutely cannot switch now. I would love to, but working camera and some alternative to Organic Maps is a must I cannot jump around when Android is "just" fine now.
