Lies vs. Statistics: VPN Virtual Server Locations
This is an article that I wrote recently for Restore Privacy.<p>The focus is identifying the undisclosed use of virtual locations by some popular VPN services. But that&#x27;s not why I&#x27;ve submitted it to HN.<p>I&#x27;d appreciate comment and criticism about the criterion that I&#x27;ve used for virtual locations. That is, where apparent signal velocity is greater than the speed of light, I conclude that the disclosed server location is implausible. And so it must be a virtual location.<p>I calculate apparent signal velocity by dividing twice the calculated great circle distance between server and ping probe, by the minimum round-trip time (minrtt). For server locations, I rely primarily on whatever the VPN service has disclosed.<p>I&#x27;d also appreciate comment and criticism about my explanation of how VPN services achieve virtual locations (&quot;How Virtual Server Locations Are Possible&quot;). Basically that they exploit discrepancies between location information that&#x27;s associated with IP addresses, and BGP advertisements based on address announcements.<p>Finally, for 195 servers that are apparently located near Nuland, I found an interesting pattern in the ping data.[0]<p>For ping probes in Europe, minrtt is 1-30 msec. Then there’s a gap in observed minrtt across the Atlantic, with apparently much faster transmission. I’m guessing that&#x27;s because trans-Atlantic cables don’t have many routers. Next there are groups for eastern and western North America, with faster transmission than within Europe, but slower than across the Atlantic. That probably also reflects router density. Last, there&#x27;s a jump to Asia and Australia.<p>Does that make sense?<p>0) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdn-resprivacy.pressidium.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2019&#x2F;12&#x2F;IPv4-Clusters-Colocation-Near-Nuland-by-City-and-Region.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdn-resprivacy.pressidium.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;201...</a>