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I'm really really interested to find out how they're discovering the DNS server IP addresses I'm using.

The only clue I have is that they're trying to resolve a bunch of fake domain names (which show up as unresolveable in the console).

The webpage has the IP addresses written directly into it (so clearly the data came from the server) which means there's nothing I can investigate (eg, in JS) from my end.

What's going on?



"The DNS leak test works by sending your client a series of domain names to resolve within a specific test domain. Each request is sent from your client to your configured DNS server. Even if you have configured a single DNS server, there may be many other servers that the request is passed on to in order to be resolved (normally to load balance the requests). For example if you configure Google DNS then you will often find 6-10 Google DNS servers which are fullfilling the DNS requests."

via https://www.dnsleaktest.com/what-is-the-difference.html

Basically it's sending you unique subdomains and then in turn seeing what IP addresses DNS requests come from. Since the subdomains are tied to you, it can tie the requests from the DNS servers you're using back to you.


OH, nice one. I knew the random hostname was part of the puzzle, but couldn't quite get that far. Thanks for the concise explanation :)


friendly reminder not to use google DNS if you care about privacy (which you probably do if you're using a VPN in the first place), because you're basically giving them your fingerprint in the form of the websites you visit.


Hmmmm.

Google has ~7ms response time for me though. Even my ISP's nameservers are slower than that :( the average everywhere else is 200ms (yup).

My internet is slow enough that this makes it a tiny bit more annoying.

But you make a very valid point, and... sigh convenience is such an hacked catalyst nowadays :(


https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy

Unless you're the tinfoil-hat wearing type who believes they're lying, their privacy policy looks pretty good to me.




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