IP is hidden but local time and location are still visible

cinzavida

General information

Version: OpenVPN 3/Linux v13_beta and OpenVPN 2.4.7

OS: Bodhi 6.0.0 (focal). 64-bit.

Description

Hello 🙂 When connect to OpenVPN it does hide my IP but when check the local time and location info (www. deviceinfo .me) they're still visible. It does happen using both OpenVPN versions listed above.
I'm not sure what to log, then I leave here some output:

# openvpn3 sessions-list
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Path: /net/openvpn/v3/sessions/e8d7509cs9cfas4defs8697se0aab4804369
     Created: Tue Jun 29 18:25:48 2021                  PID: 6834
       Owner: root                                   Device: tun0
 Config name: vpnbook-fr8-udp53.ovpn  (Config not available)
Session name: 94.23.57.8
      Status: Connection, Client connected
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

# openvpn3 session-stats --session-path /net/openvpn/v3/sessions/e8d7509cs9cfas4defs8697se0aab4804369

Connection statistics:
     BYTES_IN.................9473281
     BYTES_OUT................1373644
     PACKETS_IN.................11102
     PACKETS_OUT................10130
     TUN_BYTES_IN.............1108271
     TUN_BYTES_OUT............9214677
     TUN_PACKETS_IN..............9480
     TUN_PACKETS_OUT............10409

Hope to get some help. Have a good day.

PS.: I'm pretty sure Vpnbook is not the problem because the same profile works perfectly on my cellphone (OpenVPN for Android 0.7.22 in Android 6.0). I mean it does hide IP, location and local time of my phone.

openvpn_inc

cinzavida wrote General information
Version: OpenVPN 3/Linux v13_beta and OpenVPN 2.4.7

OS: Bodhi 6.0.0 (focal). 64-bit.

Description

Hello 🙂 When connect to OpenVPN it does hide my IP but when check the local time and location info (www. deviceinfo .me) they're still visible. It does happen using both OpenVPN versions listed above.

...

cinzavida wrote Hope to get some help. Have a good day.

PS.: I'm pretty sure Vpnbook is not the problem because the same profile works perfectly on my cellphone (OpenVPN for Android 0.7.22 in Android 6.0). I mean it does hide IP, location and local time of my phone.

"Hide IP" is not something OpenVPN actually does, and when you think about it, it's not even possible. What OpenVPN does (optionally) is redirect your gateway so that your Internet traffic passes through the VPN. Most VPN providers do this. But you still and always have your actual ISP IP address, and you use it to contact the VPN provider and establish the tunnel. You are hiding your IP traffic from your ISP perhaps, but you are not hiding it from the VPN provider.

https://www.deviceinfo.me/ looks at your IP packets to see your IP address. It also queries your browser to get a bunch of other bits of information. For example, it knows I am on a Linux laptop, and my battery is 99% charged. (It's several years old, holding a charge pretty well considering its age.)

Most browsers let you tweak and control what kind of information is available to websites. A redirecting VPN only changes the source IP address seen on your packets. Perhaps you would be interested in HTTP proxy software like http://www.squid-cache.org/ ? But even that is limited in what it can do, thanks to the prevalence of HTTPS. A proxy can't see inside the packets your browser has already encrypted, nor the arriving encrypted replies from HTTPS web sites.

You said you were hoping for some help, but I am not sure what we can help with. I hope at least the explanation is useful?

Regards, rob0

cinzavida

Hi there.
Thank you for that knowledgeful answer. It gave me some in-a-nutshell concepts about IP, VPN and Proxy stuff.
Nevertheless I don't get why deviceinfo keep showing the local-time and location of the server I'm already connected to (e.g. France) when using VPN in Android, but shows my actual local-time and location when using Ubuntu. Do you have any idea about this? Does any type of log would be helpful?

openvpn_inc

cinzavida wrote Thank you for that knowledgeful answer. It gave me some in-a-nutshell concepts about IP, VPN and Proxy stuff.

YW, glad to help!

cinzavida wrote Nevertheless I don't get why deviceinfo keep showing the local-time and location of the server I'm already connected to (e.g. France) when using VPN in Android, but shows my actual local-time and location when using Ubuntu. Do you have any idea about this? Does any type of log would be helpful?

I have only a vague idea. I'm a VPN geek (with a few other sideline specialties), but HTTP is not one of them.

Different browsers send (or withhold) different bits of information, according to how they were configured. My guess is that the deviceinfo site directly asks your browser about your time and location. But if the browser won't answer about that, it looks up the IP address in a geolocation database, and then guesses that as your time and location.

Look at your browser's security and privacy settings.

As for logs, perhaps the deviceinfo site has some logging of your requests and what they were told / what they had to guess about? Maybe there is a way to make your browser log everything that passed between you and that site?

Good luck, rob0