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VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits

ipinfo.io

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Re: VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits

#51

Post by seszett »

ramity wrote: post #31

Contrasting take: RTT and a service providing black box knowledge is not equivalent to knowledge of the backbone. To assume traffic is always efficiently routed seems dubious when considering a global scale. The supporting infrastructure of telecom is likely shaped by volume/size of traffic and not shortest paths. I'll confess my evaluation here might be overlooking some details. I'm curious on others' thoughts on th…

They don't have to assume that traffic is efficiently routed, on the contrary if they can have a It just can't be outside England, just one 0.4ms RTT as seen here is enough to be certain that the server is less then 120 km away from London (or wherever their probe was, they don't actually say, just the UK).

RTT from a known vantage point gives an absolute maximum distance, and if that maximum distance is too short then that absolutely is enough to ascertain that a server is not in the country it claims to be.

Re: VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits

#52

Post by hxtk »

drnick1 wrote: post #28
illusive4080 wrote: post #8

Mullvad is the only VPN I will ever trust. Yet again they ace the test.

The best thing is that they accept crypto. I wouldn't want to pay for a VPN with a credit card in my name.

But you have to get money into your crypto wallet somehow, which makes it relatively easy to deanonymize for most users (serious crypto privacy enthusiasts could of course pay cash for their crypto or perhaps mine it themselves) if they're looking at your traffic specifically, but hard if you're only worried about bulk collection.

IMO the coolest privacy option they have is to literally mail them an envelope full of cash with just your account's cash payment ID.

Re: VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits

#53

Post by nemomarx »

simlevesque wrote: post #49
systemtest wrote: post #43

I'm a big VPN user since I am the citizen of one country and the resident of another. Even for government services I have to use a VPN. I tried to access the bureau of statistics of my home country through my foreign residential IP and got 404s on all pages. Enabled VPN and everything magically started working. For watching the election result video stream I also had to VPN but at least that one gave me a clear messa…

> I would easily pay €30 a month for a VPN in my home country that uses a residential IP and isn't noticeable. I am aware that those exist, but 99% of them are shady. For residential IPs you can't even pay per month like normal VPNs, normally they charge per GB, usually over $2 usd per GB.

Is this be cause they're paying the residential proxy owners some of it?

Re: VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits

#54

Post by varenc »

Interesting to learn you can identify the real country/area of origin using probe latency. Though could this be simulated? Like what if the VPN IP just added 100ms-300ms of latency to all of its outgoing traffic? Ideally vary the latency based on the requesting IP's location. And also just ignore typical probe requests like ICMP (ping). And ideally all the IPs near the end of the traceroute would do all this too.

To use an example, 74.118.126.204 claims to be a Somalian IP address, but ipinfo.io identifies it as being from London based on latency. Compare `curl ipinfo.io/74.118.126.204/json` vs `curl ipwhois.app/json/74.118.126.204` to see. If that IP ignored pings and added latency to all outgoing packets, I wonder if that would stymie ipinfo's ability to identify its true origin.

Re: VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits

#55

Post by IshKebab »

Beijinger wrote: post #17
luckylion wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not sure that I really understand what they did. They checked where the VPN exit nodes are physically located. A lot of them are only setting a country in the whois data for the IP, but do not actually put the exit node in that country.

Yes, I don't understand the advantage or disadvantage of this. Let's say I need a Colombian IP address, I would figure it out pretty quickly it this was not genuine, except if the geo-block protection would be fooled too. Most of the "problem" countries are tiny places. Monaco, Andorra etc. It might be tough to rent a server there. And your list of clients should be minimal.

> I would figure it out pretty quickly it this was not genuine, except if the geo-block protection would be fooled too.

It would (unless the blockers use this company's database I guess):

> The IP registry data also says “Country X” — because the provider self-declared it that way.

That could be good or bad depending on what you're using the VPN for. E.g. if you only care about evading stupid local laws like the UK's recent Think of the Children Act, then it's actually great because you can convince websites you're in Mauritius while actually getting London data centre speeds.

But if you want to legally be sending your traffic from another country then it's less great because you actually aren't. To be honest I can't really think of many situations where this would really make a difference since the exit point of your network traffic doesn't really matter legally. E.g. if a Chinese person insults their dear leader from a VPN exit node in the UK, the Chinese authorities are going to sentence them to just as much slavery as if they did it from a local exit point.

Re: VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits

#56

Post by coppsilgold »

why-o-why wrote: post #11

I tried to use ProtonVPN when I switched over to ProtonMail a year ago. But so much of the web does not work when you're on a VPN. For example even HackerNews has VPN restrictions. More and more sites know where VPN endpoints originate. How will VPNs prevent this in the future without them just become easy to block?

As VPN usage proliferates such discrimination starts hurting sites more. For example, a VPN may be left on by a user for whatever reason and when the site they visit doesn't work or makes them jump through hoops they are less likely to visit the site in the future or view it with contempt and abandon it a soon as they are made aware of an alternative.

It takes time for sites to realize the danger, especially with mobile users where fiddling with a VPN is often more hassle than its worth and its just left always on. It's often a good idea to impersonate a mobile user agent for this reason as some sites (or perhaps cloudflare?) started treating them differently. The impersonation needs to be done well (SSL and HTTP fingerprints should also match mobile).

Usually, the more expensive the VPN offering the better the reputation of their IP's. Avoid VPNs that have any kind of free tier like the plague.

Re: VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits

#57

Post by chmod775 »

systemtest wrote: post #43

I'm a big VPN user since I am the citizen of one country and the resident of another. Even for government services I have to use a VPN. I tried to access the bureau of statistics of my home country through my foreign residential IP and got 404s on all pages. Enabled VPN and everything magically started working. For watching the election result video stream I also had to VPN but at least that one gave me a clear messa…

Do you know anyone in that country who will let you stick an rPI behind their modem?

Re: VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits

#58

Post by Deathmax »

bloppe wrote: post #34
eek2121 wrote: post #22

This was a dumb study, and if they'd asked the VPN providers, I'm sure someone would tell them why. All the VPN providers I've used let you select the endpoint from a dropdown menu. I'm not using a VPN to make it appear I'm in Russia, I'm using it as one of many tools to help further my browsing privacy. My endpoint is one of 2 major cities that are close to me. Could I pick some random 3rd world country? Sure! That…

That's great for you. But some people need to pick a specific country. People in different countries often get different prices for things like airline tickets or online subscriptions. Maybe you need to appear from a particular country to access certain media. I mostly use it to avoid exposing my IP address too, but if I knew my VPN was comfortable with a little light fraud, I'd be concerned about what else they're c…

NordVPN calls out when a location is virtual, so unless ipinfo is claiming they have virtual locations that are not labelled as such, they are at least transparent about it. They did document the physical server locations of their virtual locations at launch, but I'm not sure if there's a live doc for new locations. https://nordvpn.com/blog/new-nordvpn-virtual-servers/

Re: VPN location claims don't match real traffic exits

#60

Post by eek2121 »

bloppe wrote: post #34
eek2121 wrote: post #22

This was a dumb study, and if they'd asked the VPN providers, I'm sure someone would tell them why. All the VPN providers I've used let you select the endpoint from a dropdown menu. I'm not using a VPN to make it appear I'm in Russia, I'm using it as one of many tools to help further my browsing privacy. My endpoint is one of 2 major cities that are close to me. Could I pick some random 3rd world country? Sure! That…

That's great for you. But some people need to pick a specific country. People in different countries often get different prices for things like airline tickets or online subscriptions. Maybe you need to appear from a particular country to access certain media. I mostly use it to avoid exposing my IP address too, but if I knew my VPN was comfortable with a little light fraud, I'd be concerned about what else they're c…

All the ones I use pick one for you, it is up for you to change it, and you play a fat rate per month or year regardless of what you pick.
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