Can a VPN tell my country besides looking at my IP address?

Question

I VPN into a network daily. I'm currently in the USA, but will relocate soon. I am looking into buying a dedicated IP address located in the USA and setting up my router to use that from the other country.

Is there a way those operating the VPN network could tell my location through whatever information their VPN sees?

I already know the time/date stamp on my computer is an issue because I don't have admin rights to change it – so I'm working on a solution for that.

Answer 1

EDIT: Based on the information you added in the comments you fall under the first scenario. Even leaving it behind in the US with LogMeIn installed (which im not actually sure you can do without admin access) will not ensure your location being hidden. I don't believe it likely they will notice, it would have be one very vigilant system admin to catch you, but again due to you not having root it is technically impossible for you to fully conceal access from another country regardless of what method you use.

Given your situation the 'leaving it behind in the US with a remote tool' option is the most viable/secure/hidden way to go should you decide to chance it. Proxies are not applicable since those generally only hide web-based traffic, based on your description you need a full point to point tunnel of ALL network traffic originating from your machine. All kinds of headaches come from trying to create 2 VPNs layered on top of each other, one to first hide your address and then trying to initiate a 2nd VPN to the corporate network, add the fact that they essentially own the box you're on and it starts really not looking so good.

Original Answer:

Not enough information about your setup to make a detailed recommendation but here goes. Answer is dependent on what you meant by not having admin rights:

• Scenario: You dont have admin rights on the machine behind your router, the machine that will originate the VPN connection.

There is no way to ensure your location is hidden.

• Scenario: You do have admin rights on the machine behind your router.

It can be done reliably, however now it depends on what type of VPN connection you use to connect to their network. One option that will work for almost any situation is leaving a PC behind with a friend or relative with LogMeIn or some other remote tool installed, and then just remote into that machine and originate your VPN connection from there. Fairly fool-proof, as long as you can trust the person you're leaving it with.

There are other options such as a dedicated VPN provider based in the US, but can't say it would work without knowing what type of services you're accessing over the company VPN.

Answer 2

If you're concerned about your IP address and want to hide where you are, VPN may help but it's only HALF of the bigger picture. But quite frankly, you really don't even need to deal with VPN if all you care to do is hide your location based on IP address. You should probably be looking into something like TOR if you want/need anonymity with your connections and IP address.

All VPN is going to do is provide you a more secure way to deal with whatever remote server you want to connect to. So if that remote server then provides you a internet connection then that's pretty much where you appear to be. But a VPN is not necessarily going to help hide you! VPN-ing to a service in another country will only make it look like you're in that country. But there are still ways to trace you if your VPN exit point isn't set up right. So if you want to truly randomize your IP address then you probably shouldn't even care about VPN. Look at dealing with proxy connections and definitely consider TOR - https://www.torproject.org.