We were recently made aware of multiple potential DNS leaks on Android. They stem from bugs in Android itself, and only affect certain apps.
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Any system app on Android, the captive portal login and more CAN all bypass a VPN in “block all other connections” mode.
Android is really problematic and having as little system apps as possible is the only fix.
Mullvad is awesome. i think this is the second android bug/incident they brought to light?
Anyway, really really hope this gets fixed upstream, maybe by Graphene
How much you wanna bet this was intentional by Google? 😏
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.
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Just use rethink dns with a wireguard tunnel and block every app except those you trust and need !
I tried out rethink DNS but I did not manage in any way to just use my VPNs DNS. Would you have a hint how to make it work?
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Thank you so much. Me just stupid.
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That will not solve this issue.
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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.
What I don’t understand though, doesn’t using mullvad automatically set their own DNS?
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.
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.
This is not a feature in stock AOSP.
This is a feature in calyxos, lineageos
I thought sharing the VPN was blocked and not possible. Do you remember how you did?
Ive recently managed to do this;
Settings> Network & Internet> Hotspot & Tethering> Allow Clients To Use VPN
Not in pixel :( I would love this
I think that’s a feature in newer android versions, but maybe some manufacturers disallow it.
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.
https://adguard-dns.io/kb/general/dns-providers/
mine gives me three choices. Off, Automatic, and Private DNS (type in your own). should i set mine to off then? will that prevent the leak?
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.comthere.so automatic will allow the leak?
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.
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.
One DoT provider you could choose is… Mullvad: https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls
I like AdGuard, but any decent provider is going to be fine except for Google/Cloudflare or western Big Tech ones.
“The report detailed how the user managed to leak DNS queries when disabling and enabling VPN while having “Block connections without VPN” on.”
Not to diminish the severity of the issue but I can’t imagine this being the factor that pushes the average person to ios over android.
I’m not sure of anyone who switches from iOS. Once you are in the ecosystem they won’t let you leave.
Why is this stupidity repeated ad nauseum? I’ve successfully switched from iOS to Android and back to iOS again without any hindrance.
It’s not any different from switching from windows to Linux.
Then why can’t I use an Apple watch with anything but Apple products? Why do I need a Mac to create iOS apps?
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.
You could use an Android watch with iOS but Apple will not let you. I don’t get why you are defending Apple
What do you mean don’t let you? https://screenrant.com/samsung-galaxy-watch-4-use-with-iphone-compatible-explained/
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…
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.
Source on bad sms and mms support? I use an iPhone and both seem to work fine…
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.
Uhhhh, source? Those are pretty bold claims to just casually toss out
The other fellow provided some links, but this is a serious, in depth technical elaboration on the topic. https://gist.github.com/iosecure/357e724811fe04167332ef54e736670d
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.
Here!
https://protonvpn.com/blog/apple-ios-vulnerability-disclosure/
https://mullvad.net/en/help/using-mullvad-app-on-ios#vulnerabilities
Those remain unpatched btw and have been around since iOS 14 or so.
Cheers 🥂
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