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I started using some days ago a VPN service to surf the web anonymously. My worry is now that if the connection to the VPN server drops I will automaticaly get my real external IP from my ISP so my anonymity is gone.

It is possible to achive "100%" anonymity by using a second VPN tunnel in the first VPN tunnel (I do not have much knowledge about VPN please forgive if i say something wrong). By that I mean if one of the connections to VPN drops I should still use other external IP than my real one.

Are there different scenarios for example if the connection to the outer tunnel drops than if the connection to the inner one drops?

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  • Some VPN service providers that use a client to establish a connection will offer failover protection. For example, from one provider: "The internet kill switch activates VPN disconnect protection. If you disconnect from the VPN, your internet access will stop working. It will reactivate normal internet access when you deactivate the kill switch mode or exit the application."
    – root
    Jun 4, 2014 at 11:11
  • @root this can also be done with a firewall, for example in Linux by using iptables rules that will only allow Internet traffic through the VPN IP address. This solution avoids having to install a proprietary client that may contain spyware.
    – baptx
    Feb 3, 2020 at 14:51

1 Answer 1

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Using a VPN in a VPN is not the way to go. If the first VPN fails (the one you connect to) it still would switch to your own internet.

The best way to combat this is to set your gateway IP to a non-existing one and add a route for the VPN to the gateway ip.

This means that you can only connect to the internet to this VPN ip, and if that connection drops, so does your internet. If for whatever reason the VPN fails and doesn't come back, you will not have internet unless you set the gateway ip to the right one.

Set the gateway address

Given that you havent' given us what OS you use, I'll assume Windows 7.

  1. Open your network settings
  2. Go to adapter settings
  3. Edit the properties of yoru Local Area Connection
  4. Edit the TCP/IPv4 settings
  5. Give yourself a static IP address and enter 127.0.0.1 as default gateway
  6. You might need to do the same for TCP/IP v6 (or disable it)

Add a route for the gateway

  1. Start a command prompt with Administrative privileges.
  2. Enter the following command and make sure you do not make any typo! (replace xx.xx.xx.xx with the IP-Address of the VPN tunnel. Replace gg.gg.gg.gg with th IP-Address of the gateway (usually your router's IP-Address)

.

route -p -4 ADD xx.xx.xx.xx gg.gg.gg.gg
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  • thank you for showing me how to set this :) I am using Ubuntu 13.10
    – CMS
    Jun 4, 2014 at 11:19
  • You're welcome. I don't know how to do a route in ubuntu though, but I bet google can tell you how to do this.
    – LPChip
    Jun 4, 2014 at 12:53

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