VPN showing wrong location

Questions
1

I’m wondering if I’m not understanding something about setting up my own VPN on a VPS instance. I purchased a VPS instance located in the US and set up OpenVPN. When I look at the IP on whatismyipaddress.com it shows the correct server IP, however when I log into telegram through the VPN it shows my location as China. I wouldn’t be so concerned but shouldn’t my VPN always list the location as the location of the VPS which is in the US??? If I were using a VPN service I would expect my VPN location to change but since that is not the case I’m wondering if my server has been usurped. Am I missing something? Thanks.

2

Hey @dfdakota!
Which VPS provider are you using?

3

I’m using Rack Nerd.

4

@dfdakota

I’m curious, where in the telegram app do you see that its in China? Are you using telegram on your phone or on your desktop?

5

@dfdakota - try to see where this Geo IP locator shows you at:

6

Well that was interesting. All of the various Geo locator tracking notes reflected the state in which I presumed my VPS was located or the location that I expected, except the IPregistry.co data reflects the location in China and appeared on my telegram device location data. Hmmmm. Not sure what this means but that’s the info.

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7

The information was appearing in my telegram security settings under devices. It showed that the open instances of the application running on my desktop through my VPN was reflected to be located in China, so it made me questions this because I specifically chose a VPS to host my VPN that was located in the US or so I thought.

8

Sometimes things can get a bit hazy. On this laptop I have NordVPN, which says that I’m logged in Washington state, but when I visited a website - researching drivers, it thought I was in Germany. The cookies appeared in German too.

And the IP came out in Washington state too. Still, the website thought I was German.

9

I just looked into it. In some scenarios, when using a Peer-to-Peer application when connected to a VPN server that is not configured for it, it will pick up the location of that other peer. That would pretty much point your device as being in another place than you actually are.

10

Ok. Thank you. So I will lay this worry to rest and get onto the next thing :slightly_smiling_face:

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11

Thank you @dfdakota for the reply and allowing me to check mine as well and all is good for me. Nothing suspicious.

And thank you @vasileios for getting to the bottom of the discrepancy so quickly. Your skills are amazing.

Michael

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