I live in country A, but use a server in country B.
I worry that when I visit websites where my identity is know (for example my University Microsoft), whith the VPN IP, I become deanonymised.
Is this a valid concern?
If you’re logged in, then yes, the website knows it’s you.
They might not know the original IP address that your VPN is hiding, but they still know that it’s “you.”
Yeah, if you log into any account, the account service provider will know its you no matter the IP you are connecting from. This isn’t de-anonymization because you would be voluntarily logging in an account.
Whether it is a valid concern or not is upto you depending on what concerns you.
Thank for your answers, but my question was whether I will be deanonymised on other websites
It depends on the sites and if they are connected in any way, if so how, etc. I would recommend assuming the answer is yes if it is important to your threat model.
VPN’s do not bring you any anonymity generally. It is a myth.
See: How Do VPNs Protect Your Privacy? Our VPN Overview - Privacy Guides
4 Likes
Please, I have always said that separate devices should be used for each task. One device for work, another for personal things, etc. It’s basic, but I know that some people can’t afford to buy multiple devices.
This is true, but I think the the question seems to be about just websites being able to correlate the visitor to their real identity in this case, rather than true anonymity which was just being misused as a term here.
1 Like
Like others have said, if you log into a website that already knows your identity, you are not anonymous. They already know who you are.
But if you are talking about a different scenario in where you anonymously access another website with the same VPN IP, then read below.
If you use the same VPN IP with Website X that knows you (for example, your university) along with another Website Y that doesn’t know you (for example, this forum), it’s “possible” that you could be “de-anonymized” on Website Y, or that your anonymous browsing habits on Website Y could be known to Website X.
Maybe Website X’s fingerprinting of you was somehow leaked or shared or something, which allowed Website Y to crossreference it with its own fingerprinting of you. Or maybe Website Y’s fingerprinting of you was leaked, which allowed Website X to crossreference with their own. It’s hard to say because this is not my field of expertise, so take this example with a grain of salt and wait for the fingerprinting/tracking overview to be completed.
But either way, VPN IPs are usually shared with many, many people. It’s probably unlikely that crossreferencing only VPN IPs would work in “de-anonymizing” you (home IP addresses would work, though, since they are unique to your home network, I think). Not only this, but IP addresses are only one aspect of fingerprinting. There’s a lot more to fingerprinting than IP addresses. Fingerprints could be successfully crossreferenced even if you use different VPN IP addresses on each website because you could share many other fingerprinted aspects, like GPU or window size or operating system or whatever.
If you do not want to be deanonymized between websites, use Tor or Mullvad. But again, as others have said, using Tor or Mullvad on a website that already knows who you are (like your university) will not make you anonymous because they already know who you are.
Edit: I have not checked these out specifically, but they may be of significance to you:
2 Likes
There are many unknowns in your question, but from my understanding of your question, the answer would be yes.
You can always assume you’re being fingerprinted as @anonymous465.
Assuming that:
- You use one of the recommended VPNs which share the same IP address with multiple people.
- You live in a large enough population.
In the scenario where you live in country A, with a VPN in country B and you log on a website X with PII.
If you don’t want website Y to identify you, then you should separate your browsing experience. Even without talking about fingerprinting, there are ways with cookies to track you from website X to website Y (for example Facebook pixels).
So for any websites with PII use whatever privacy browser you prefer. For browsing on non PII websites, use Mullvad + VPN.