Your VPN Knows Too Much | Carl Dong
A traditional VPN sends your entire internet history through one company that also has your name, address and payment details. Liam sits down with Carl Dong, founder of Obscura VPN and former Bitcoin Core developer, on why two hops beat one and why AI makes privacy urgent. Guest: Carl Dong, founder of Obscura VPN and former Bitcoin Core developer: X: https://x.com/obscuravpn Website: https://obscura.com/ BOOK A CONSULTATION Holding Bitcoin for decades raises two questions: who protects it, and how it reaches your family. Onramp answers both. Three institutions protect it, and no single one can lose it, move it, or use it. Inheritance built in. Insured through Lloyd's of London. Speak with our team to see if it fits. 👉 https://go.onrampbitcoin.com/consult-fs-pod GET ON THE LIST • Onramp: our research, event invites, and the week's Bitcoin news in one free email. https://go.onrampbitcoin.com/research-fs-pod • Early Riders Insights: the best content in the ecosystem, weekly. https://www.earlyriders.com/research ABOUT THIS EPISODE Carl Dong grew up building ways around China's Great Firewall, then worked at Blockstream and Chaincode Labs on Bitcoin Core, where his focus was software supply chain security. He explains reproducible builds and fuzzing, and why AI's infinite patience turns theoretical attacks into real ones. He makes the case that a traditional VPN swaps your ISP for one unregulated company that sees all of your traffic, and walks through Obscura's two-party relay with Mullvad, where neither company knows both who you are and where you go. He covers disguising VPN traffic as HTTP/3 to get through firewalls in airports, hotels and China, and why privacy tools have to be as easy as the alternatives. Liam and Carl also discuss AI agents overtaking human web traffic, connected AI that may know you better than anyone, private and local models, and how recent hardware wallet supply chain attacks harden the industry. CHAPTERS 00:00 - Carl Dong: from the Great Firewall to Bitcoin Core 03:15 - The VPN trust problem and the two-party relay idea 06:29 - AI, infinite patience and software supply chain attacks 08:41 - Reproducible builds: verifying Bitcoin Core downloads 11:15 - How a traditional VPN works and what it can see 14:25 - VPNs as custodians: don't trust, verify 15:31 - Beating censorship by looking like normal traffic 18:38 - Mimicking HTTP/3 so VPNs don't get blocked 19:18 - Freedom tech has to be easy to use 22:07 - AI traffic passes human traffic: what changes online 24:59 - AI that knows everything about you, and private AI 29:58 - Local AI models on your phone 30:57 - What's next for Obscura: Linux and automatic protection 32:15 - Supply chain attacks and a hardened Bitcoin industry 34:24 - Where to find Carl and Obscura ABOUT THE SHOW Final Settlement Interview Series: a one on one interview series hosted by Liam Nelson, Partner at Early Riders. One guest, and a deep conversation on the deals, the capital and the technology moving through bitcoin, so you can hear how the people actually doing the work think about where the future is going. Presented by Early Riders and Onramp Media. • Connect with Early Riders: https://www.earlyriders.com/contact • Liam: https://x.com/Lnelson_21 • Obscura: https://x.com/obscuravpn MORE FROM ONRAMP MEDIA • The Last Trade and First Principles: https://www.youtube.com/@OnrampMedia • Signal vs Noise, live twice a week: https://www.youtube.com/@SignalvsNoiseLIVE • Audio, every show: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1690709152 or search Onramp Bitcoin Media on Spotify • News and data: https://onramp.media Onramp does not provide financ