4 Ways to Find the Real IP Address Behind a VPN – VPN Success
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Using a VPN is a great way to protect your identity when browsing the web. The applications of technology are practically endless and can greatly enhance your online experience. For safety purposes, you may want to get an idea of how to check if your VPN is working properly or how to get someone’s real IP in your network.
How do you find the real IP address behind a VPN? You can troubleshoot any leaks in your VPN and legally find the real IP address of the user by:
- Testing with WebRTC
- Troubleshooting with free online services
- Request VPN log files
- using DNS
If you feel that your privacy has been violated or simply wish to monitor the activity going on in a network under your control, these methods will help you protect your identity with a VPN and expose the identity of potential hackers. There are many caveats about how VPNs and IP addresses work. The intricacies of IP addresses, DNS, and VPNs are discussed in detail below.
Why search for the real IP behind a VPN?
If you are a business owner and need to track the web activity of your employees, or even a concerned parent who monitors the internet history of your minor child, then you may need to know how to find the real IP address behind a VPN. Doing so will help you find the identifying information of a computer that has been accessed in a network that you run or that you are part of in some way.
On the other hand, knowing the ways in which the real IP address hidden behind a VPN can be found is a great way to prepare for any potential problems you might encounter when using one. For example, you can use these methods to stay ahead of any hackers by improving security as you find flaws in the network.
Recently, a VPN security flaw was discovered that allows remote sites to use an engineered feature in most browsers known as WebRTC (Web Real-Time Connection). With this feature, websites can reveal a user’s real IP address, even when using a VPN. While it’s not a big deal yet, it’s only a matter of time until popular services like Netflix and Hulu use this functionality to keep VPN users away from their platforms.
It only takes a little simple coding for someone to figure out:
- Your real physical location
- Your Internet Service Provider
- Your identity
Although it is currently only an issue for browser-based sites and services, anything that can display a web page, browser, or application, can take advantage of this feature as WebRTC can be accessed through almost any browser. Missing out on simple streaming services might not seem like a big deal, but note that government authorities can also use this functionality to find your identity and location.
How does WebRTC work
Two of the most popular web browsers, Firefox and Google Chrome, have already begun to increase the usefulness of WebRTC to users. Through these browsers, WebRTC allows users to request local and public IP addresses from STUN (session traversal tools for Nat, another type of network protocol) servers.
When the required data is provided, it is made available in JavaScript. Due to the way STUN requests are made, they are not visible to the developer console and can, therefore, avoid being blocked by defensive plugins such as AdBlockPlus.
1. Test your VPN with WebRTC
With this instructable, you will specifically test the ability of WebRTC to access your real IP address behind a VPN. This is useful for exploring your VPN’s ability to hide your real IP address and let you know if it’s working.
- Visit any freely available website on the internet to retrieve the IP address generated by your ISP.
- Log into the VPN and change the information as you like (choose another location if you wish). Double-check that you are connected before moving on to the next step.
- Revisit the site that gave you your IP address for step 1. This time, it should provide you with the IP address provided by your VPN.
- visit WebRTC test page To confirm whether it shows your real IP address or not. If they both show the new address provided by the VPN, you’re all set! Your information is protected. If not, your information will be leaked.
Once you are sure that your IP address is leaking, you may want to know the exact vulnerabilities to better protect yourself in the future. Follow the steps for revealing your IP address behind the VPN to identify these vulnerabilities. You can find your real IP using JavaScript by copying and pasting the code written here, or using another method described below.
2. Use the online service
There are many services available online that promise to provide your real IP address, along with your location and other identifying information. To find your real IP using these, follow these instructions to troubleshoot the effectiveness of your VPN:
- Log in to your VPN and choose a specific location.
- Visit the online service of your choice.
- See the information listed on the site. Your will list:
- IPv4 (Internet Protocol Version 4): This is written in the following format, “N” representing numbers: “NNNN” These numbers usually range from 0-255. This is a 32-bit address. Each computer is assigned a unique sequence of 1 and 0. This is limited, as it can only connect about 4.2 billion devices. With smartphones, tablets, desktops, laptops, game consoles…there just isn’t enough space! This necessitates IPv6.
- IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6): This IP address is written as eight consecutive hexadecimal forms. With this difference, a much larger number of devices can be connected to the Internet at once.
- Local IP addresses: These addresses are only used in your own network rather than being shown to the outside world. This can change if different devices connect to and disconnect from the same network (even the order in which you connect can affect your IP address). They are usually set in one-digit increments (for example, 192.168.1.2 vs. 192.168.1.3).
- Internet service provider
This is useful not only for revealing the real address and other information behind the VPN, it may also become necessary when you are confirming the VPN provider’s services. Unfortunately, you won’t always be able to trust what the provider says about the sites they offer, but this way, you can determine the sites yourself.
3. Access to VPN log files
This option is available for those individuals who need to access an IP address through a VPN for safety reasons. This makes the most sense if you experience a cybersecurity breach. It is only available through a court order, however, this should not be taken lightly. This is the most common legal way to access the real IP address of someone using a VPN.
why? Because accessing a real IP address protected by a VPN can be considered a privacy violation, which results in personal information being exposed to an unapproved individual. A VPN log file is a record of a computer’s web activity, keeping track of incoming and outgoing connections information to the server.
Information saved in files includes:
- Your IP address
- The IP address provided by the VPN
- Timestamps indicate when a user was connected and disconnected from the VPN
- The ability of the VPN to access all the above information
Note that not all VPN service providers keep the same data, and some do not keep these logs to the extent of other providers. These records depend on the privacy policy the provider supports and how they treat user security.
4. Use DNS
DNS, or Domain Name System, helps provide IP addresses by translating them from domain names. This helps browsers load information resources to then send them to the appropriate computers that you request. When you control the DNS translate your domain, you can monitor all requests coming to your server.
Using DNS in the following way will help you reveal the real IP address of the users accessing your network:
- Create a subdomain for each user requesting access to your server.
- Include this subdomain in the HTML.
- You will now be able to check the user’s real IP address on the DNS server.
This technique will work as long as the user does not hide their DNS along with their IP address. (For example, the SOCKS proxy hides DNS requests along with the user’s personal information.)
What is your IP address?
Whenever you connect to a server, AKA another computer, no matter where in the world it is located, your system is required to share information about your computer. This information may include the physical location of your computer, as well as identifying information that allows the server to remember your computer to access it in the future. This data is shared in part because of your Internet Protocol (IP) address.
Once you are allowed to access this server, your computer will need a way to connect to the appropriate network. A network consists of a group of computers that are all connected. Most of the time, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will provide you with the ability to connect to a particular network, where they will complete all the necessary connections for you.
Your ISP will also give you instructions on how to use the service once you are connected. They use several different types of technologies in managing all the computers in a given network. Different technologies are needed because each computer within the network is likely to be involved in a different activity than the other, so all these interactions must be kept separate.
For example, if a computer in the network is going to visit a website, that website must know which machine the web page will be sent to. Not to be confused with others – this is where the IP address comes in. The IP address tells this web page the address of the computer that requested it and tells the website where to go.
How does a real IP address work?
For these purposes, your ISP will provide you with a temporary IP address, rather than a permanent one. (A temporary word can mean as short as a few days to several months, but the bottom line is that it will always change eventually.) With Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP), a server can assign a unique IP address to your computer.
DHCP configures all the necessary items for your computer to connect to a network. For this reason, you may not be able to set up a server on your computer, as no one will be able to find it due to the constant change.
When your computer tries to connect to the server, the server records the network configuration. This information is collected at the time of contact. So, even though you may not know what IP address was assigned to you by DHCP, the server will. This address collected in real time is known as the “real IP address”.
It’s the real IP address that allows your computer to receive web pages and emails all in real time. To find your real IP address, you will need to directly request the server. Sometimes, though, you don’t need to find your own IP and may need to find someone else’s IP address, if they use a VPN, for example.
Your IP address with VPN
This is all well and good, but what does it have to do with VPNs? A VPN, officially known as a Virtual Private Network, is another factor in the process of connecting your computer to a network. A VPN will hide your IP address and your actual location by essentially hiding behind another IP address. It is also possible to view the location of your choice when using a VPN.
This is a way to protect your personal information from distribution on the websites you visit if for some reason you need to keep this information confidential. Instead of seeing your information, the server will instead receive the data of the computer providing you with the VPN. Then your ISP will only see the encrypted data from your computer as well, providing another layer of security.
Some of the benefits of using a VPN are:
- It is a reliable method…
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