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> Mullvad and other VPNs only provide trivial layer of IP address masking, they don't automatically block the endless list of tracking elements from HTTP header
by elliekelly 5y ago
> Mullvad and other VPNs only provide trivial layer of IP address masking, they don't automatically block the endless list of tracking elements from HTTP headers to web bugs, LSOs, JWTs, cookies, webRTC, or canvas fingerprinting, and user actions on the site.
I’ve been a Mullvad user for a few years now and I’ve been quite happy with them but one thing I’ve noticed is that, no matter how I’ve got Mullvad or my browser configured, BBC/Channel 4 knows I’m not actually in the UK. If anyone has any idea how they’re getting my location I’d be curious to know.
- stavros 5y agoMaybe they just assume that anyone on Mullvad isn't in the UK?
- q3k 5y ago> BBC/Channel 4 knows I’m not actually in the UK. If anyone has any idea how they’re getting my location I’d be curious to know Plenty ways to figure out you're connecting from behind a VPN. Aggressively filtering for well known residential address space, detecting suspicious changes in traffic patterns from shared blocks/IPs used by VPN companies, detecting split DNS behaviour, detecting much higher latency and/or lower TTL between the client and server than what's expected/average within that public address space, detecting unexpectedly low MSS/MTU on the segment behind NAT, ...
- codezero 5y agoYou might be sending a language in the request header (many browsers do this by default), something like en-gb. I bet there are a few other areas this localization information leaks.