vpn not behaving as expected

[bauer82]

hi

i have a question regarding vpn

i have 2 devices. im running freedome vpn on both

i connect both to home wifi

connect each through the vpn

my public ip address is the same on both devices

this doesnt seem right ?!

is this supposed to happen?

thanks!

[bauer82]

Ok I think that's my answer. . I'll just leave the thread open in case someone has something to add
. Thanks zyx!

[zyx]

Marking a post as "the answer" doesn't close the thread nor prevent anyone from adding to it, by the way!

[bauer82]

Fir reference one of the sites I checked (look under 'shared ip'):
https://torguard.net/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-shared-and-dedicated-ip-vpn-service/

[zyx]

I think the part about having your own private IP is to circumvent country filters. Some people use that to access the US Netflix instead of the canadian one, for example, because the Netflix servers look at the public IP to figure out where you are in the world. They might also use the IP address to limit the number of simultaneous devices using the service.

They also mention online banking, but I fail to see the point; banks use https, so the connection is already encrypted between your device and the bank. I can't think of a reason why you'd need a VPN in that situation.

[bauer82]

Great thanks! So before I accept as solution, ur sure there's no security risk there at all? Just cause I read that some vpn providers give users 2 services.. 1 dedicated ip for the user for sure stuff and one service for annonimity where many users use same ip... thanks again!

[bauer82]

Well I did some reading it seems like some vpn do share ip fir anonymity purposes and others don't for security purposes but couldnt find too much out beyond that.. if anyone has the answers please help me!

[bauer82]

Also I have connected to VPN not with same initial up (home wifi). Connected with cellular data on each phone. 2 different phones different Sim cards different providers ie no connection to each other whatsoever EXCEPT the proximity of time in which I switched on the VPN, and I get the same ip half the time!

[zyx]

---

@bauer82 wrote:

hi

i have a question regarding vpn

i have 2 devices. im running freedome vpn on both

i connect both to home wifi

connect each through the vpn

my public ip address is the same on both devices

this doesnt seem right ?!

is this supposed to happen?

thanks!

---

I'm not familiar with freedome VPN, but if your "public IP" is the same given here, then yes, it makes perfect sense, because you're in the home wifi. You'll actually have the same public IP as any computer on your wifi/network.

You receive a single IP address at your home. You WiFi router provides you with a private address (most likely starting with 192.168), but it translates automatically between the private network (your home) and the public network (the Internet). Since you have only one public IP, every device on your network uses it.

[bauer82]

Thanks zyx. Not sure I follow.. I think ur referring to my physical connection being my "public ip".. were using different applications of the phrase i think. what I meant by public ip was in the sense that my phone would  show a 'public ip' supplied by freedome. .so my actual ip wold be my home ip (or lIke u said a 192. Link to my home ip) and my public one would be the one supplied by VPN. .

[zyx]

Oh, I see! Well in that case I can't really say, but I would not be surprised if many devices ended up on the same public IP anyway, as it is unlikely that freedome has as many public IP as they have customers.

Question is: is something not working through the VPN?

[bauer82]

That's what I'm worried about! If 2 of my devices ended up on the same ip couldn't someone else end up on the same ip and cause a security risk?

[zyx · Accepted solution]

---

@bauer82 wrote:

That's what I'm worried about! If 2 of my devices ended up on the same ip couldn't someone else end up on the same ip and cause a security risk?

---

There are most likely hundreds of other devices using that same IP at the same time. It's perfectly normal and expected.

What security risk are you thinking about?

Another client seeing all your traffic? No, only the VPN device sees all traffic, and directs it to the appropriate client. The VPN service basically does the same job as your home router: aggregate multiple devices on a single (or a poll of) IP address. The VPN device maintains a table in memory to figure out where to send the replies to. You can read on Network Address Translation (or NAT for short) for the details.

If you're using https, your traffic is encrypted between you and the server you're talking to, so no one could decrypt it anyway even if they did see all your traffic.

But so far, not only I don't see anything wrong, but that's what I would expect.

[bauer82]

No I haven't contacted them about this. I just wanna know if this should or shouldn't be happening with a VPN plus I've tried their tech support before they weren't very helpful.

[FidoAmanda]

Hey bauer82!

Not too sure about that. Have you reached out to Freedome's support team? What did they say?

@Community Anyone else have any ideas?