VPN leaks users’ IPs via WebRTC • Hacker News Board

Re: VPN leaks users’ IPs via WebRTC

#81

Post by gruez » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 8:17 PM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #59

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By using a VPN you cut yourself off from participating as an equal citizen on the net. What?

You can't host servers off a VPN. You don't have control or use of your own ports. You can consume and that's about it.

>You can consume and that's about it.

Uploading videos isn't "consuming". Writing blogs/articles isn't "consuming". Contributing to open source projects isn't "consuming". Neither of those activities require forwarded ports.

Re: VPN leaks users’ IPs via WebRTC

#82

Post by blunte » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 8:25 PM UTC

Froyoh wrote: post #58

Ahhh why is the scrolling messed up :/

I did find a bit of irony that the page warning about VPNs leaking my IP was hijacking my scrolling.

Re: VPN leaks users’ IPs via WebRTC

#83

Post by bubblethink » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 8:28 PM UTC

th0ma5 wrote: post #63

lovelearning wrote: post #22

I don't use VPNs. For me, the more alarming information here is that SOCKS and Tor proxies are also leaking IP addresses. If a SOCKS proxy is configured in browser, isn't it the browser's responsibility to ensure all outgoing traffic - including WebRTC - goes via the proxy? Are these browser bugs? Update: Can confirm Firefox Quantum with SOCKS proxy leaks the address. Oh dear! Update 2: I didn't realize this is how W…

I tried some of the leak tests here, it seems to leak my NAT address not my nearest public IP? Can anyone chime in?

It's not even the local ip of your home network. It's the ip of the tunnel interface. I don't know how this can be misused. It's only on firefox though. On chromium, it just shows 0.0.0.0 instead.

Re: VPN leaks users’ IPs via WebRTC

#84

Post by qwaitwhat » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 8:34 PM UTC

FWIW, various arbitrarily strung together components (your OS, DNS, VPN, Browser, WebRTC) are not going to guarantee anonymity. Simply because it is not their job.

The only possible solution is a piece of software that guarantees end-to-end privacy by literally standing guard at each end (from the moment you connect to your network with your hardware MAC address exposed to the final moment when a web page is retrieved for you from your destiantion website).

Shameless plug: my project proposes to do exactly this. https://qwaitwhat.github.io/

Re: VPN leaks users’ IPs via WebRTC

#85

Post by codedokode » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 8:38 PM UTC

It seems that main purpose of WebRTC was disclosing user's IP addresses. By the way, did you know that Websocket can be used for port scanning [1]? I was surprised to find that Aliexpress code scans 127.0.0.1 (visitor's computer) for VNC, RDP and similar ports.

[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/96/materials/slides-96-...

Re: VPN leaks users’ IPs via WebRTC

#86

Post by dillondoyle » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 8:40 PM UTC

I think it's a bit crazy Chrome web tools/inspector doesn't show these connections easily. You can check out chrome://webrtc-internals but most people just look at the network tab which shows nothing...

Re: VPN leaks users’ IPs via WebRTC

#87

Post by anfilt » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 8:41 PM UTC

cpeterso wrote: post #30

cosmiccartel wrote: post #2

Just want to point anyone looking to test their own VPN to https://ipleak.net/ . That's been my go-to, and it seems more comprehensive than the linked service.

You can test WebRTC IP address (and media device id) leakage using https://browserleaks.com/webrtc . To disable WebRTC in Firefox, set the about:config prefs "media.peerconnection.enabled" and "media.navigator.enabled" to false.

Re: VPN leaks users’ IPs via WebRTC

#88

Post by anfilt » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 8:42 PM UTC

For firefox the following in about:config should do the trick.

    media.peerconnection.turn.disable = true
    media.peerconnection.use_document_iceservers = false
    media.peerconnection.video.enabled = false
    media.peerconnection.video.vp9_enabled = false
    media.peerconnection.video.h264_enabled = false
    media.peerconnection.identity.enabled = false
    media.peerconnection.identity.timeout = 1

Re: VPN leaks users’ IPs via WebRTC

#89

Post by superkuh » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 8:50 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #81

superkuh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't host servers off a VPN. You don't have control or use of your own ports. You can consume and that's about it.

>You can consume and that's about it. Uploading videos isn't "consuming". Writing blogs/articles isn't "consuming". Contributing to open source projects isn't "consuming". Neither of those activities require forwarded ports.

True enough. But they also aren't participating in the net. They're using other people and companies' resources to do things rather than participating yourself.

And that's bad because it leads to centralization. And centralization leads to perverse incentives to spy and censor.

Re: VPN leaks users’ IPs via WebRTC

#90

Post by swiley » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 8:56 PM UTC

lovelearning wrote: post #22

I don't use VPNs. For me, the more alarming information here is that SOCKS and Tor proxies are also leaking IP addresses. If a SOCKS proxy is configured in browser, isn't it the browser's responsibility to ensure all outgoing traffic - including WebRTC - goes via the proxy? Are these browser bugs? Update: Can confirm Firefox Quantum with SOCKS proxy leaks the address. Oh dear! Update 2: I didn't realize this is how W…

This is why when I actually do anything with tor it's always curl -H ""

Using something as complex as firefox for anything important is just stupid.