Comment by Schlagbohrer
7 hours ago
I've always assumed that when I am logged in to a website like Hacker News and I switch VPN endpoints, Hacker News now gets to see that I am a VPN user and track me between the IPs. I mean being logged in to something obviously negates a large amount of anonymity but switching servers while logged in really gives away the VPN usage, right? Or do large web services already keep up to date indecies of all common VPN IPs?
It's very common for people to switch networks many times a day anyway so it's not obviously a VPN user - even when switching countries to some extent.
Can you elaborate? I assume they're talking about switching networks while using the same site, when you have a user fingerprint from cookies or request paths. That does make VPN usage obvious.
I have been confused by this mitigation because switching networks while using the same service is pretty much always a VPN. But maybe I'm not aware of another case where that would happen?
for example: getting into your house and your phone starts using your wi-fi instead of a mobile network (or the other way around)