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AdguardVPN sketchy DNS requests. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by N0x0n@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

After the discussion in the following post I dug a bit deeper the rabbit hole.

While I mostly relied on Exodus to see if an app has trackers in it... I was baffle to see all the sketchy requests it made while dumping the DNS requests with PCAPdroid...

Over 200 shady requests in a few seconds after login... here's a preview:

While I don't use AdguardVPN, I have Adguard Home as my DNS server in my homelab... I think It's time to switch to pi-hole !

Edit: VPN pcapdroid

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[–] Fontasia@feddit.nl 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

A lot of paranoia on this community :(

There's a few sign in checks (The variety makes me think Disqus or something similar.), a couple of keep alives, your phone registering for Wi-Fi calling, Fallback DNS requests, a couple of CDN requests which I would get is likely update checks and finally YouTube content for NewPipe. I think I'm seeing five tracking cookies based on the rest of your apps here, probably being sent "Do Not Track" requests.

[–] N0x0n@lemmy.ml 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

This dump is only from AdguardVPN app. This traffic is not my routed traffic to the VPN.

As you can see on the second screen my vpn is connected to PCAPdroid.

And 800 requests in less than a minutes on a rooted/debloated android?

I have seen a lot of keep alive/cdn packets and fallback dns... and I know how a VPN and routing works. I have setup my whole homelab with selfhosted wireguard/dns/router... I have seen a lot of request on my Adguardhome and played arround with wireshark to see the whole network traffic.

Sure on a whole network there is a lot of traffic, but this amount of request for a single app? There's something fishy !

Edit: Try it for yourself and post some screenshots.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 4 points 7 months ago

N0x0n started as a skeptic and used one piece of software to test it, I used NetGuard and was pretty skeptical myself... do you have the VPN app and can you test too?