Sites showing different region location than the one on the VPN

[qhzo]

qhzo last edited by leocg

If you believe Google Maps, then Opera is often not terminating in the region (Americas, Asia, or Europe) that it claims to be. Either some of the exit nodes have been hijacked and forwarded elsewhere, or Google is using incoming data to infer (or hallucinate) where the exit node lives in geospace. I suggest discussing this observation with your VPN provider before it causes reputational damage, notwithstanding that it may very well be an illusion. Even so, Google's inferential tendencies would provide good cover for actual hijacking, so please inspect carefully.

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @qhzo last edited by

@qhzo Sites don't know your location, unless they ask for your geo location and you agree to send it.

What most sites do is to try to guess your location based on the IP range.

Since Opera VPN IP addresses are virtual and only change the final part, sites end failing on guessing the location.

[qhzo]

qhzo @leocg last edited by

@leocg Thanks for the feedback, which I think is accurate, but my point was actually that Google Maps' inferred location is consistent with roughly half of your exit nodes having been compromised. The entire reason that it's guessing somewhere out-of-region is either because it's being heavily used by people in those regions, or that it has been compromised and forwarded to those regions for ultimate exit and traffic capture. This deserves investigation, inasmuch as it's likely the former cause. Google should not be so stupid in its inferences because it has deep knowledge of IP geomapping, so I think this at least exceeds the threshold of "suspicious".