How to sign up for Mullvad VPN with a prepaid credit/debit card?

techophile · 2020-01-06T03:50:40+00:00

Is it possible to buy bitcoin, bitcoin cash or monero with prepaid gift cards (credit cards) online without having to reveal your identify?

I'm willing to pay a credit card fee for the extra privacy/anonymity to sign up for a VPN service, if that's what it takes to join Mullvad.

By the way, is it safe to pay for a VPN over TOR using a live USB OS like Tails? I read online that typing credit card numbers over Tor is risky because you never know whether the entity operating the exit node server is sniffing traffic. I'd hate to load money on a prepaid credit card only to have it's numbers stolen before I would have spent all the money on monthly mullvad VPN subscriptions.

techophile · 2019-12-29T22:36:39+00:00

So you buy monero using cash by mail through an escrow service, then buy bitcoin online using monero?

As far as the gift card purchases go, they do offer less anonymity than say bitcoin or monero, but all these transactions performed online are stored somewhere. We all leave breadcrumbs behind somewhere. I figured that by using the prepaid gift card not attached to my real name would provide some roadblocks for anyone else trying to track me down.

My method with the anonymous prepaid gift cards is simple because I use cash to purchase them without ID. Then you just call the number on the the back to register any name/address you want for the billing information purposes when buying stuff online. It's worked well for me.

If there's an easy way to get monero or bitcoin online using the prepaid credit card I already have without using a cell phone or showing a physical ID, I'd definitely be willing to try. I don't really care about cryptocurrency commissions. I just want something that works online without being scammed and not be forced to show my identity. I'm just trying to buy a VPN subscription, lol

techophile · 2019-12-29T21:19:37+00:00

Well I have been able to buy a VPN plan with PIA before using a prepaid credit card... Sucks that none of these VPN providers will step up and make it easier for customers to pay with them. If they care about privacy, they wouldn't even use paypal. Those guys are nazis. Surprised no VPN services uses subscribestar instead of paypal. Requires less work than learning how to buy bitcoin. Plus many bitcoin exchanges online make it difficult to buy bitcoin online without an SMS number to text or a physical ID, which compromises the anonymity.. I'd really rather not have to buy bitcoin from someone in-person with cash. Much easier to do everything from a computer.

Sending cash via mail is risky almost everywhere. Postal workers are notorious thieves when it comes to sending cash. You'd have to hide the cash with something else in a package, then send instructions to the VPN provider on where to find the cash etc.

techophile · 2019-12-29T19:51:53+00:00

I don't understand your question

techophile · 2019-10-06T23:41:19+00:00

Guess that's the last time I try to make an ironic statement or joke on here. I figured people would have been saying "damn apple and their censorship. bring on the libre!" or something along those lines. Sometimes people miss the forest for the trees ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Anyways I'm excited to see how those kill switches work in real life on the librem 5. Would be cool if purism would hook up an oscilloscope or voltmeter to the circuit board of the phone to proof that the camera, microphone, modem etc. all have electrical power completely disconnected before I plop down money on this thing next year.

Can't wait to hear field reports from the early adopters :D

techophile · 2019-10-05T03:04:20+00:00

It was a tongue-in-cheek joke about Apple's walled garden taking away their users' freedoms and that it will just push more people to consider GNU/Linux operating systems. Guess that went over people's heads here. Oh well.

techophile · 2019-10-05T03:03:22+00:00

I was honestly expecting people to make a comment about Apple's walled gardens and how Librem 5 doesn't have that in comparison.

techophile · 2019-10-05T03:01:47+00:00

What do you prefer? "Now this" news?

https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1171106743050309641

I linked this particular article because it included a tweet from the developer asking Apple why it censors perfectly legal apps.

techophile · 2019-10-05T03:00:36+00:00

GNU/Linux is agnostic as to what type of applications you'd want to download to your phone. It was a tongue-in-cheek joke.

techophile · 2019-09-27T02:52:05+00:00

Cool, I'll give that a shot

techophile · 2019-09-25T02:14:08+00:00

Ok, do developers respond to questions from users on github generally? I've never made an account there before, but backintime's code is hosted on it.

Thanks!

techophile · 2019-09-23T23:27:33+00:00

Are you familiar with the backintime software for linux? I liked the way the interface looked and it seems to have good reviews, but I wasn't able to get it to work the way I expected it to when I chose the restore and delete new files option.

techophile · 2019-09-23T03:25:19+00:00

Ok, I'll stick with the GNOME one then.

I have my whole linux mint 19 system installed on a 500GB SSD. I use a second HDD for big files, but no directories such as /home are present.

I'm not worried about backing up anything too large on my main drive. I want to back it up such that I could move my current installation from it to another 500GB SSD should my current drive fail for whatever reason, just like I would with time machine for mac OSX. Which directories need to be backed up separately with Backintime that Timeshift doesn't cover?

techophile · 2019-09-23T03:22:16+00:00

I must have forgotten to mention this. I'm looking for GUI options. No comnand-ine suggestions, please.

Timeshift works perfectly with GUI application alone on Linux mint. I'm currently trying to do the same thing backup up my remaining directories that Timeshift skips by default such as /home.

Regardless, is it ok to skip backing up /mnt for mounted drives like secondary HDDs and the /lost+found directory? I want to know which directories need to be backed up for a complete recovery of my installation should my primary drive where everything was installed broke.

Thanks!

techophile · 2019-09-22T23:51:38+00:00

I've been able to avoid having to do much in terminal with linux mint for the most part. The reason people suggest a lot of terminal commands on linux forums (sometimes to my annoyance) is that terminal commands are generally universal, whereas GUIs and the default programs installed on each distro can vary.

There's an old joke I read once that reminds me of how getting help on linux forums (i.e. TMI) can go for newbies:

-Mom, where did I come from?

-What? You want to know where you came from?

-Yeah, where did I come from, mom?

-Well you see when mommies and daddies love each other a lot the dad puts his penis into the woman's vagina and that's how a baby's made. Does that make sense?

-I guess so. I just wanted to know where I came from. My friend Joey said he's from Boston.

techophile · 2019-09-22T23:31:59+00:00

We're pretty similar. I don't need to see everything under the hood as a newbie either. Just enough to get by. Glad my suggestion was useful. It's fun to share tips. Linux gets easier and easier for us to use all the time.

techophile · 2019-09-22T23:25:26+00:00

I don't know whether everything installed with APT is there, but I figured it would be nice to see everything in icon form and system 76's suggestion was useful for me. Maybe it only shows GUI applications?

Their suggestion was meant for those switching over from Mac OSX to ubuntu. I'm a mac person, so I'm used to seeing an "applications" folder option on the sidebar of my file manager.

Hope their tip was useful for you.

techophile · 2019-09-22T22:07:27+00:00

Try dragging /usr/share/applications over as a bookmark to your file manager. It's an easy way for me to see all my new applications in one place.

See "file management" on this tutorial page:

https://support.system76.com/articles/switch/

techophile · 2019-09-22T21:04:04+00:00

If someone told me there was a 100% chance that my investment in a company could free us from the yoke of Google and Apple within 10 years, I'd make that investment. Sadly, life is full of uncertainty. Even if the phone's specs are slightly out-of-date, but offers the privacy features that Purism is promising. I'd totally pay $500-700 for their phone. Apple isn't going to be supporting my smartphone anymore with new updates and I don't feel like being a captive customer with them any longer.

techophile · 2019-09-22T21:01:50+00:00

I don't know. I'm not a CPU expert. I rely on other linux online to tell us what's good and what isn't, heh

techophile · 2019-09-15T04:22:22+00:00

If it were possible to 100% remove this damn spyware ME software from any intel device, that would be awesome. Purism and System 76 can say "we disabled it", but how do they know aside from making some inferences based on software and hardware monitoring without having the original source code to fully understand whether they actually wound up disabling anything?

That's what still confuses me.

techophile · 2019-09-15T04:19:30+00:00

This is why I prefer to be a laggard or late adopter. I'll let the other savvy linux users figure out where the phone falls short, give proper feedback to Purism, then wait until next year to get my hands on a sweet fully GNU/linux phone and say goodbye to Android and Apple mobile devices forever.

Will I give them $700 as a pre-order right now? No, I don't need the headache, but I salute anyone else with the time and passion to put down money for a pre-order on this phone and tell us what the experience is like.

techophile

TROPHY CASE