Is your browser leaking your IP address?
WebRTC can leak your real IP address even if you use a VPN.
@abucci@anthony.buc.ci Librewolf protects from this by default. https://librewolf.net/docs/features/#privacy
I don’t fully understand the privacy issues around your IP address, especially in Web RTC, where it’s actually necessary to be able to exchange your IP address between peers – kind of how the protocol works right? 🤔
@prologic@twtxt.net The problem with WebRTC is that the implementations tend to try all the available network interfaces and ignore proxy settings, thus leaking your real IP address.
@abucci@anthony.buc.ci Just one more reason to get off of Chromium-based browsers.
@mckinley@twtxt.net You mean leaking your internal Private IP on your LAN? 🤔
@prologic@twtxt.net No, the public IP allocated to you by your ISP as opposed to the one at the other end of your VPN or proxy tunnel.
@abucci@anthony.buc.ci I feel this about Signal giving everyone real phone numbers. I worry a little less about IP addresses because I’m generally pretty public about my rough geographic area anyways…
Out of curiosity, I tried the leak test on Ungoogled Chromium and it actually was leaking the private use internal IP given to me by my VPN provider. That doesn’t happen on LibreWolf due to its security measures.
My real IP still didn’t leak because my VPN client prevents any other program from using my real network interface.
@ocdtrekkie@twtxt.net I feel the same way myself too. I’m generally pretty open about roughly geographically where I live, I don’t have anything to “hide” there per se. Its the incessant tracking of my online activities and shoving ads in my face that I have a real problem with.
As some of you may know I actually pay for a /29 IPv4 address block from my ISP where I run the so-called “Mills DC”. Most of you don’t really know what my IP address block is because I generally put things behind proxies like Cloudflare (yes yes I know) mostly to thwart/protect from bad actors and potential DDoS attacks.
One thing I do want to point out though IHMO… Is I think one of the best ways of protecting your online privacy and security is by going completely decentralised in the first place. NOT to be confused with “distributed” networking systems like ActivityPub, Matrix, Blockchains, etc where you leak you “Node’s IP Address” anyway to all sorts of “unknown actors”.
In a completely decentralised model where you peer with friends/family and people you trust and “pull” information, there is much more trust that can be built up IMO.
@prologic@twtxt.net Well, you can always run a Monero node as a Tor hidden service :)
@mckinley@twtxt.net Hah 😆