Is my location private?

HillStreetBlues

forgotmyname said:

People rely on VPN's far too much.  The browser and website maybe giving away more data than you realise.

I run a forum and have a few game servers, I can collect data from your PC, browser data and hardware data no matter
what your VPN location/IP address is.

On how much depends if it smudged or not.

DullGreyGuy

There are two methods of location:

1. IP - this is what many websites and services use to estimate where you are, they dont need your permission and this can be protected with a VPN

2. WiFi geolocation - this requires permission from the user and effectively uses the wireless card to identify the SSIDs of networks it can see (irrespective if it's connected by wifi or ethernet). There are various dbs that contain known locations of SSIDs and so it's just a matter of triangulation. 


So it's your own laptop thats snitching on you, its telling google or whichever website you are using, what SSIDs it can see and from that they can determine your location. 


If you use Chrome as your browser you can go into the developer tools and the Sensor section which allows you to select from a number of preselected cities or add your own long/lat that you want wifi geolocation to show you at. 

Eldi_Dos

facade said:

Olinda99 said:

As always, it depends who wants to know your location and why 

if you don't want your mum to know where you are then you're probably safe. If you're trying to hide from law enforcement then you're not

I don't want my enemies to know where I am.

My enemies are everyone who isn't sat in the Living Room right now- but I'm not too sure about The Goldfish, he seems to stare at me a bit too much for my liking

Can you not turn bowl round the other way if you are doing anything you don't want the goldfish to see?

facade

Eldi_Dos said:

Can you not turn bowl round the other way if you are doing anything you don't want the goldfish to see?

I tried that, but he is too smart to be fooled, and simply swims back to the front, with his little notebook and pen in his fin.

forgotmyname

HillStreetBlues said:

On how much depends if it smudged or not.

I carry a glass cleaning cloth to clear smudges. 

Also to make people more paranoid there are websites you can use that collect data from forums and popping in an IP or username
may give the persons email address they used for other forums..  When I found it I thought surely that breaks privacy laws in many
countries?

HillStreetBlues

forgotmyname said:

Also to make people more paranoid there are websites you can use that collect data from forums and popping in an IP or username
may give the persons email address they used for other forums..  When I found it I thought surely that breaks privacy laws in many
countries?

Are you talking about data breaches, with sites offering that info and also passwords that have been pwned?