I just bought a VPN and I just want to make sure it is working properly. Is “What Is My IP” good enough to check?
Also, now will my network admin be able to see I am using a VPN? Any chance they can see what I am doing while connected?
A good site to check with is www.ipleak.net. It will show ip and also test for webRTC leaks and DNS leaks.
You lost me asking about network admim. Are you talking about your ISP ? If so, your ISP can see that you are connected to one of your VPN’s servers , but that’s it because all traffic will be encrypted.
Edit… I see PositronicTomato beat me to it. Sorry for the redundant post. Lol
You need to check your interfaces locally to be absolutely sure. ipleak will only see what your node sends it. Make sure all of your traffic locally is going out your tun/tap device.
Check ipleak to see whether what it says is your external IP matches what your VPN is telling you.
If you want to be extra paranoid, check regularly to see if your tunnel IP changes at all. Some people check this constantly (like every 5 seconds)
Last if you like to leave your computers up all the time, I would suggest you do some sort of timed auto-reconnect, so that you get a different IP from time to time. Or do it manually.
This is all scriptable.
When you say network admin, do you mean you are doing this on a computer and a connection that isn’t yours? Because if you’re doing VPNing at work on a work computer to download Backdoor Sluts 9, you likely won’t be employed for long.
What is a WebRTC leak?
So if I torrent, nobody will know it?
Make sure all of your traffic locally is going out your tun/tap device.
This is where configuration of VPN can get kind of funky on Windows, and is why I switched to Linux just to be sure. It’s very difficult for the layman to ensure that your torrent client(s) will disconnect if the VPN connection goes down. If OP is using a third-party software to stop the torrents as soon as the VPN goes down they should be fine. To be extra careful I’d recommend setting specific rules in the Advanced Firewall settings in Windows.
Nope. All traffic will look the same to the network. Just in and out of that single address. Not even packet sniffing should be able to work out exactly what you are sending over the VPN.
Well, the VPN provider will know you are doing it. And the MPAA and RIAA will know someone using a particular IP address from that VPN is torrenting.
So basically you’re still just one court order away from being discovered.
Also, don’t forget that even without access to the content, they will see the size of your traffic… So if you have no reason to have large amount of transfers, keep the torrenting on the low (sysadmins are not stupid)
I am using PIA and actually they offer an option for a “VPN Kill Switch”.
If I understand it right, the VPN client will completely cut off your internet connection if the VPN disconnects.
Link- PIA Support Portal
So basically you’re still just one court order away from being discovered.
That’s if the VPN provider keeps logs. Some claim not to…
Except for when the kill switch crashes…
If they claim not to and someone gets caught using their service and if his/her lawyers determine the prosecutors were given logs by the VPN provider it would be disastrous for the provider. All trust in the provider would be lost, effectively killing their business.