Mullvad is strengthening its defenses against AI surveillance and censorship

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

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

Keep reading as I explain what these extra features are about and why you should use them.

Fighting back against AI tracking

Mullvad launched DAITA in May, describing it as “the first step” in the fight against advanced traffic analytics. It is built entirely on an open source framework – meaning anyone can check that it works as promised – and aims to change the appearance of data packets sent over the VPN network to prevent snoopers from transmitting this activity to can trace you back.

DAITA is a necessary tool because a virtual private network (VPN) can only protect you from certain types of online surveillance – not all.

A VPN encrypts your internet connections so that third parties cannot access the contents of the data packet you sent – ​​although they can still see it moving – while spoofing your real IP address location. Simply put, when you use a VPN or even the more secure Tor Browser, you can still be vulnerable to traffic analysis.

As Jan Jonsson, CEO of Mullvad VPN, explains, artificial intelligence has made traffic analysis particularly dangerous for user privacy. This is because AI can be used to analyze the data packets sent back and forth from your device to tie online activity back to individual users. At the same time, AI tools can search all the data collected by authorities and big tech companies faster and at a more advanced level.

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

DAITA launched in May 2024 on Mullvad’s Windows VPN apps for Windows 10 and 11 operating systems, with support for macOS and Linux in early September. Now Android users can finally take advantage of the advanced protection.

Enabling DAITA on Android is easy. All you have to do is open your app and go to Institutions. Here you have to tap VPN settings and then DAITA to switch ON the switch button.

When you connect to a VPN server, you’ll notice a notification (“via DAITA”) appears next to the server location on the app’s homepage. This means your online activities have an extra layer of protection and are less susceptible to third-party tracking, as Mullvad promises to make all data packets the same size and add random background traffic.

Faster VPN obfuscation

AI tracking may 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 rise 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 cybersecurity to help users bypass restrictions.

VPN obfuscation is a hugely important part of this. As the name suggests, it refers to the technology responsible for hiding the fact that you are using a VPN at all. Although different techniques achieve the same thing, they all have something in common: making the VPN traffic look like normal traffic to bypass any VPN blocks and bans.

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

So when you use Mullvad VPN on desktop or Android, you don’t have to sacrifice performance and blocking capabilities in exchange for improved digital privacy. In fact, our most recent tests show a clear discrepancy between peak speeds with WireGuard (950 Mbps) and OpenVPN (410 Mbps). WireGuard Shadowsocks support for the Mullvad iPhone VPN app is expected to come at a later date

It’s worth noting that at the time of writing, you may still encounter some connection stability issues when using Shadowsocks and switching between networks. “We are currently working to address these as part of an upcoming release,” the provider said in a statement blog post. The Mullvad team ensures that none of these issues are security related and do not expose you to any risk of data breaches.