What is a WebRTC leak? What is the WebRTC technology?

<h1 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial;">What is a WebRTC leak?</h1><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A WebRTC leak, like a DNS-leak, is the capability to get your real address even while you are using some anonymization services.</div><h2 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">What is the WebRTC technology?</h2><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a technology that allows you to organize the flow of data between browsers. It is currently supported by Firefox and Chrome, as well as all browsers that are based on Chrome. The technology basically allows voice and video communication in browsers.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The leak of the IP address (local and external) occurs by calling the command using WebRTC. Typically, this command is called by javascript.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">There are two solutions for this problem - prohibiting the execution of all scripts in the browser and/or disabling the WebRTC technology in the browser.</div>

What is a WebRTC leak? What is the WebRTC technology?

What is a WebRTC leak? A WebRTC leak, like a DNS-leak, is the capability to get your real address even while you are using some anonymizatio...

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What is a Subnet Mask? How it works?

<h1 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial;">What is a Subnet Mask?</h1><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">There are two elements every IP address consists of: one element represents the network address, and the other one represents the host address. There is a ‘tool’ (that is a number) called a subnet mask that specifies which part of an IP address to use in order to define the network ID.</div><h2 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">Subnetting</h2><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A subnet mask divides the IP address into the network address— ‘masking’ or hiding it — and host address. The host part then can be divided into a subnetwork (or a subnet), and host address, in case there is a need for additional subnetwork to boost performance and security of the network.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Systems that are in the same subnet are able to interact directly with each other without additional permission or equipment, while different subnet systems can’t communicate directly — they have to interact via a router. Therefore, subnets are also essential for separating multiple networks and restricting the traffic between them.</div><h2 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">How it works</h2><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Let’s have a look at an IPv4 subnet mask. It consists of four bytes (32 bits) and is written the same way as an IP address of this version — a string of groups of decimal numbers each separated by a full stop. A subnet mask works by setting all the bits of the network to 1s and all the bits of the host to 0s. This transformation allows router not to handle the whole 32-bit address but to look only at the bits chosen by the mask, translating the sequences of eight binary 1s to 255.</div><h2 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">The way it looks</h2><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">There are several network classes such as Class A, B, and C, usually consisting of 8-, 16-, and 24-bits correspondingly, which use slightly different subnet masks. For instance, 255.255.255.0 is the subnet mask commonly used for Class C IP addresses.</div><img class="text-image" src="https://whatismyip.li/images/subnet-mask/subnet-mask-img.png?cb=041" style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; height: 138.24px; width: 288px;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><br /><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">When a subnet mask is applied to an IP address, a bitwise logical AND operation is performed, and as a result, the network address is produced. Let’s take 216.4.128.13 IP address and apply a subnet mask to it:</div><ul style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><li>IP address: 1101 1000 . 0000 0011 . 1000 0000 . 0000 1100 (216.004.128.013)</li><li>Subnet mask: 1111 1111 . 1111 1111 . 1111 1111 . 0000 0000 (255.255.255.000)</li><li>Network address: 1101 1000 . 0000 0011 . 1000 0000 . 0000 0000 (216.004.128.000)</li></ul><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">With the help of subnet masks, organizations can subdivide public IP address blocks to get more IP addresses required for ensuring efficient work process, while they don’t have to get new IP network numbers from an Internet Service Provider (ISP).</div>

What is a Subnet Mask? How it works?

What is a Subnet Mask? There are two elements every IP address consists of: one element represents the network address, and the other one re...

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What is an ISP? What are you know?

<h1 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial;">What is an ISP?</h1><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">ISP is short for Internet Service Provider, a company in your area that supplies you with access to the Internet and related services through several types of connection. There is a great number of ISPs throughout the world that offer various types of plans and fees, and the most well-known is AT&T, Verizone, Comcast Xfinity, etc. By the way, it is an ISP who provides you with an IP address - an identifier used while surfing the Internet.</div><h2 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">Performance chain</h2><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">When you make a request to open a web page or download a file through your connected to the Internet device, a whole chain of events occurs. First, the web browser you are using (e.g., Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.) uses DNS servers to translate the alphabetic address of your request into its IP address. Then this IP address is sent from your router to your ISP, which in turn forwards it to the ISP of your request destination, and only then, in reverse order, the data you are searching for travels back to your device. However, it takes just a few seconds to perform this complicated process.</div><img class="text-image" src="https://whatismyip.li/images/ips/ips-img.png?cb=041" style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; height: 191.906px; width: 288px;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><br /><h2 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">Types of ISPs</h2><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">With the continuous improvement of technologies, the types of Internet Service Providers have grown in order to provide faster, better, and more reliable Internet. There are Dial-Up, DSL, cable, wireless, and satellite ISPs.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The Dial-Up Internet connection was one of the very first ways of using the Internet and the slowest one. Users need a modem in order to connect to a remote server via a telephone line. The problem users experienced using the Dial-Up method was that being connected to the Internet, no one could get through – the phone-line was occupied. And when someone used a phone, the connection was broken.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connection is usually provided by a phone company, whose users need a DSL router to be able to access the Internet. The connection is carried out with the help of the extra signals that do not interfere with phone signals. Today this method is widespread, affordable, and much faster than the Dial-Up method.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Cable ISPs are often companies that provide internet access and television together, using electric or fiber optic cabling (the latter transmits the signal using pulses of light and is highly efficient, durable, and fast). As this method has become as common as Dial-Up and DSL connection, some phone companies (which are DSL ones) have begun to provide cable services as well.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) provide wireless internet access, which has been getting more and more popular as it doesn’t require such cumbrous equipment as other methods do. However, today wireless speeds are usually lower, comparing to other methods, and there can be connection interruptions due to a big distance between the ISP and the device connected to the Internet.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Another, a less common and much more expensive way, is providing internet access through a satellite in near-earth orbit. This method is usually used in remote areas where it is difficult or impossible to use cable or DSL services. Although its speed is about the same as the speed of the abovementioned services, there is often a cap of the amount of data that can be used per month.</div>

What is an ISP? What are you know?

What is an ISP? ISP is short for Internet Service Provider, a company in your area that supplies you with access to the Internet and related...

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What is IPv6?

<h1 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial;">What is IPv6?</h1><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the latest version of Internet Protocol (IP) — a network layer protocol providing computers and other devices on networks with a location and identification system as well as routing traffic over the Internet.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">IPv4 is the predecessor of IPv6, which is still widely used but, due to the shortfall of IP addresses available under it, it was decided to develop an updated version to be able to ensure required number of IP addresses, which is continuously growing due to the increase of the number of devices connected to the Internet.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The most significant improvement in IPv6 is the lengthening from 32 bits to 128 bits. IPv4 uses a 32-bit addressing scheme that can provide about 4.3 billion devices (it was expected that the Internet would have run out of all unique IPv4 addresses by 2010). While IPv6 uses 128-bit addressing capable of providing near 3.4×1038 addresses (which is enough to assign an IPv6 address to each atom of our planet and even to more other planets).</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">IPv6 address consists of eight strings or groups, each containing four alphanumeric characters, separated by colons (e.g., 2001:0db8:0000:0042:0000:8a2e:0370:8899). While IPv4 looks different — it is represented as four groups of three digits with each group separated by dots (e.g., 201. 201. 201. 201).</div><img class="text-image" src="https://whatismyip.li/images/ipv6/ipv6-img.png?cb=041" style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; height: 192px; width: 288px;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><br /><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Another improvement of IPv6 is that it supports auto-configuration that allows correcting most of the drawbacks in version 4. IPv6 has also integrated mobility and security features.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Both versions are successfully used; however, they can’t interact with each other. Thus to exchange the traffic between the two networks one needs additional translator gateways. And although upgrading equipment for IPv6 capabilities is quite time-consuming and expensive, it is expected that the world will move away from IPv4 sooner or later.</div>

What is IPv6?

What is IPv6? Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the latest version of Internet Protocol (IP) — a network layer protocol providing comput...

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What is a DNS leak?

<h1 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial;">What is a DNS leak?</h1><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">In general, when you type any request in your browser, use an email client, or other apps, your request is sent to a particular DNS server to translate a human-friendly destination URL into its machine-friendly IP address.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">An Internet Service Provider (ISP), which provides you with internet access, usually assigns DNS servers by itself, and thus it can easily track and monitor all your requests. If you want to avoid disclosing your browsing activity, you should use a virtual private network (VPN).</div><h2 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">VPN keeps you safe</h2><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">VPN guides your request and all soft data (i.e., your passwords, CC details, etc.) you may use on the Internet through an encrypted tunnel from your browser to the VPN’s DNS server, not to your ISP’s DNS server. This way you stay anonymous, and your browsing activity can’t be revealed by third parties.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Unfortunately, under certain conditions, your browser may fail to send your request to the VPN’s server and send it right to your ISP instead. This is what a DNS leak is, and it may occur due to some default settings of your device. You may think that your privacy is kept safe on the net, but your online activity can be actually tracked when a DNS leak occurs.</div><img class="text-image" src="https://whatismyip.li/images/dns-leak/dns-leak-img.png?cb=041" style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; height: 172.792px; width: 288px;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><br /><h2 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">How to prevent it?</h2><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">To spot a DNS leak you can use online leak test services, and if the leak is detected, you can prevent further loss of information. Firstly, you can change the default DNS servers to limit your ISP provider’s surveillance ability. This change may also lead to faster Internet speeds. Secondly, make sure the VPN service you’re using has a DNS leak protection. You can find this information in the VPN settings.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">DNS leak may also happen if you forgot to turn on VPN service, or if it was disconnected because of some problems with internet connection, and started surfing the net without getting your connection encrypted. So be careful and always make sure your VPN is on.</div><div class="col-xs-12" style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="text-center" id="dns_leak"><h2 style="color: black; font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">Examples of such DNS servers are:</h2><div id="dns_leak-wait_messages"></div><div class="list-group" id="dns_leak-results"><div class="list-group-item" id="159_89_207_144"><b>159.89.207.144</b><br />Singapore<br /></div><div class="list-group-item" id="74_125_190_30"><b>74.125.190.30</b><br />Singapore<br />Residential </div><div class="list-group-item" id="159_89_207_129"><b>159.89.207.129</b><br />Singapore<br /></div><div class="list-group-item" id="172_217_32_130"><b>172.217.32.130</b><br />Singapore<br /></div><div class="list-group-item" id="74_125_190_145"><b>74.125.190.145</b><br />Singapore<br />Residential </div></div><div id="dns_leak-errors"></div></div></div><h2 class="text-center" style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">For IPv6:</h2><div class="text-center" style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">2001:4860:4860::8888<br />2001:4860:4860::8844</div>

What is a DNS leak?

What is a DNS leak? In general, when you type any request in your browser, use an email client, or other apps, your request is sent to a par...

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SSL OR TLS?

<h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; color: #444340; font-family: Yrsa, sans-serif; font-size: 23px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.4em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SSL or TLS?</h2><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #444340; font-family: "Source Sans Pro", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">New versions of SSL have been released to ensure more secure data transmission, and TLS (Transport Layer Security) is just the updated version of SSL. Previous changes were reflected in the name by adding the number of versions, for example, SSLv2.0 or SSLv3.0. However, instead of naming the next version SSLv4.0, it was called TLSv1.0.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #444340; font-family: "Source Sans Pro", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As SSL is more commonly used, it is referred to while talking about securing transmitted data, even if the TLS version is actually used.</div>

SSL OR TLS?

SSL or TLS? New versions of SSL have been released to ensure more secure data transmission, and TLS (Transport Layer Security) is just the u...

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How to recognize SSL-secured websites? SSL certificate A-Z

<h2 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">How to recognize SSL-secured websites?</h2><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Websites use SSL technology to let their customers feel confident while providing their personal data, for example, while purchasing online. To let you easily see whether the website you are visiting is a trusted one or not, browsers give you visual cues such as an icon of a lock next to the address bar or the whole bar green.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The lock icon means that a website is SSL-secured, while a green address bar implies that a website uses Extended Validation SSL. Another distinctive feature of SSL is that the websites that use it begin not with http but with https.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><img class="text-image" src="https://whatismyip.li/images/ssl/ssl-img.png?cb=041" style="height: 197.927px; width: 288px;" /></div><h2 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">How does it work?</h2><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">All browsers are capable of interacting with SSL-secured web servers, but to make this interaction happen, the browser and the server need an SSL certificate (a small data file used to link a cryptographic key with details of an organization or site) for establishing a secure connection. Therefore, when a browser tries to access an SSL-secured website, an ‘SSL Handshake’ process takes place, which is instant and invisible for users.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Setting up the SSL connection requires three keys; they are the public, private, and session ones. It works this way: any data encrypted with the private key can be decrypted by the public key solely, and vice versa. However, as such an encryption process is quite power-consuming, it is used only during the SSL Handshake, after which a symmetric session key is created. Thus, when the secure connection is established, the transmitted data is encrypted with this session key.</div><h2 style="font-family: "OpenSans Bold"; line-height: initial; padding-top: 20px;">SSL or TLS?</h2><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">New versions of SSL have been released to ensure more secure data transmission, and TLS (Transport Layer Security) is just the updated version of SSL. Previous changes were reflected in the name by adding the number of versions, for example, SSLv2.0 or SSLv3.0. However, instead of naming the next version SSLv4.0, it was called TLSv1.0.</div><div style="color: #444444; font-family: "OpenSans Regular", Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">As SSL is more commonly used, it is referred to while talking about securing transmitted data, even if the TLS version is actually used.</div>

How to recognize SSL-secured websites? SSL certificate A-Z

How to recognize SSL-secured websites? Websites use SSL technology to let their customers feel confident while providing their personal data...

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