Work IT loved this one. Somehow when I connected to a Boston server through one of the popular commercial VPN services, work IT was flagged that an employee was connecting from Australia. I was not in Australia. I reached out to the commercial VPN provider and IM’ed with them - they we actually super helpful. They said everything looks like it should and your IP is showing you’re connected from Boston. I tried a few different ‘whatsmyipaddress’ websites and some showed Boston while others showed Australia. What’s going on here?
IPv4 addresses get re-used all the time, chances are every website you visit will see your IP differently due to using outdated databases.
Another user recommended using IPv6 but be cautious as IPv6 isn’t available for every VPN provider and enabling it could cause your true IP/DNS to be leaked.
You can tell if there is an incorrectly registered IP address by doing a traceroute and looking at the route as it progresses through to it’s destination.
For example, if it is progressing through routers/hops that have IP addresses registered to Australia, then it likely IS an Australian-homed server.
Use this to look up an IP address: Whois-RWS
Nothing strange here. IPv4 addresses are in short supply and are traded all the time. Not all ‘whatsmyipaddress’ websites manage to keep current records.
Look up the IPv6 address and you are likely to get an accurate location.
- It could be a IPv6 leak - if the VPN provider isn’t blocking IPv6 on their tunnel it could cause this. You can disable IPv6 easily enough yourself.
- It could also be a location services issue - if you allowed the system to share location and the provider uses that. We recommend disabling Location Services when using a VPN.
- It could be that the application you are using is actually bypassing the VPN tunnel (Self app-splitting) - unusual, but possible. What services/app is showing AU? Browser or something like Slack?
Using a commercial VPN service, I connected to their Boston server. When connected to the VPN and connecting to work services e.g. Outlook, One Drive, Office 365, they’re saying my IP address is showing that I’m in Australia instead of Boston. IT may have some software that scans for unusual connections or something?
I’m sorry you don’t find Arin’s information useful.
As a counterpoint to what you’ve said, I would state that most people would find that the knowledge of multiple IP blocks in a row being registered to an entiy in Australia as a strong indicator as being on a host from Australia, versus “Middletown, NJ” from your example.