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Mullvad is strengthening its defenses against AI surveillance and censorship

Online Niel October 29, 2024

One of the the best VPN services on the market have just unveiled new advanced security features, strengthening their defenses against some of the most pressing online threats.

On October 25, 2024, Mulvad VPN unveiled expanded protections against AI surveillance and censorship in two separate announcements. The recently released DAITA feature, short for Defense against AI-guided Traffic Analysis, is now also available for Android VPN app – previously only Windows, macOS and Linux users could use it. At the same time, the vendor added Shadowsocks obfuscation technology to WireGuard The VPN protocol for its Android and desktop apps.

Read on as I explain what these added features are and why you should use them.

Fighting against AI tracking

Mullvad launched Dait in May, describing it as the “first step” in the fight against sophisticated traffic analysis. Completely built on an open-source framework – meaning anyone can verify that it works as promised – it aims to alter the appearance of data packets sent over the VPN network to prevent snoopers from tracking these activities back to you.

DAITA is a necessary tool that a virtual private network (VPN) it can only protect you against some forms of online surveillance – not all.

A VPN encrypts your internet connections so third parties can’t access the contents of the data packet you’ve sent – although they can still see it in motion – while spoofing the real location of your IP address. Simply put, when you use a VPN or even more secure Tor Browseryou may still be vulnerable to traffic analysis.

As Jan Jonsson, CEO of Mullvad VPN, explains, artificial intelligence has made traffic analysis especially dangerous for user privacy. This is because AI can be used to analyze packets of data sent back and forth from the device to link online activities back to individual users. At the same time, AI tools can sort through all the data that authorities and big tech companies have collected faster and at a more sophisticated level.

“AI will be used both to collect data about people and to analyze that data. That’s why we developed DAITA, to counter that right at the point of data collection,” Jonsson told me.

Mullvad Introduces Defense Against AI Guided Traffic Analysis (DAITA) https://t.co/bfOVYCT0ziMay 7, 2024

DAITA released in May 2024 on Mullvad’s VPN Apps for Windows for Windows 10 and 11 operating systems, with support for macOS and Linux arriving in early September. Now Android users can finally benefit from advanced protection.

Activating DAITA on Android is easy. All you have to do is open your app and go to settings. Here you will need to tap VPN settings and then Dait to switch ON switch button.

When you connect to a VPN server, you’ll see a notification (“using DAITA”) appear next to the server’s location on the app’s home page. This means your online activities have an extra layer of protection and are less likely to be tracked by a third party, as Mullvad promises to make all data packets the same size while adding random background traffic.

Faster VPN obfuscation

AI tracking might be a relatively new threat on the internet, but online censorship is a much older risk and one of the main reasons why VPN use continues to grow around the world. At the same time, however, authorities are getting better at blocking VPN use.

As a result, VPN providers must continue to evolve in the cybersecurity space to help users avoid restrictions.

VPN obfuscation is an extremely important part of it. As the name suggests, it refers to the technology responsible for hiding the fact that you are using a VPN in the first place. While different techniques achieve the same thing, they all have something in common – making sure that VPN traffic looks like normal traffic to avoid any VPN blocking and banning.

WireGuard Shadowsocks support for the Mullvad iPhone VPN app is expected to come at a later date

Mullvad has been using Shadowsocks obfuscation since 2019 as its default setting OpenVPN protocol to help users successfully bypass firewalls and censorship. What has changed now, however, is that the vendor has expanded support for Shadowsocks to faster and more efficient ones. WireGuard protocol.

So when you use Mullvad VPN on a desktop or Android, you won’t have to sacrifice performance and blocking capabilities for enhanced digital privacy. Our latest tests actually show a clear discrepancy between peak speeds with WireGuard (950 Mbps) and OpenVPN (410 Mbps). WireGuard Shadowsocks support for Mullvad iPhone VPN the application is expected to come at a later date

It’s worth noting that you may still experience some connection stability issues at the time of writing when using Shadowsocks and switching between networks. “We are currently working on addressing these as part of a future release,” the vendor said in a blog post. The Mullvad team ensures that none of these issues are security-related, nor do they expose you to any risk of data leakage.