Quick question about VPN

So I'd never use vpn before. I just got one and it connects to California IP.
My question is, if I download torrents and I have a california ip, it would be traced or tracked because of the hard policies USA has?
Or it doesn't matter. Or shoul I use a diferent ip?

The country of the ip address is not relevant in this matter. As long as the VPN provider doesn't keep logs, any and every ip is safe. If logs are kept, no ip is safe, if there's an inquiry by law enforcement.

HoNeYBiRD said:

The country of the ip address is not relevant in this matter. As long as the VPN provider doesn't keep logs, any and every ip is safe. If logs are kept, no ip is safe, if there's an inquiry by law enforcement.

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Sorry to let you know, "no logs policy" is a myth. Lol

Vpns work sometimes but it depends on how good it is. Sometimes the up still says the city you’re in, instead of the vpns fake city. So it’s weird. Try it and see. Might work

HustleForLife said:

Sorry to let you know, "no logs policy" is a myth. Lol

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Many VPN services advertise themselves as no log, which is often not true. But it's not true either, that there aren't any real no log VPN services.

There is an element to commercial VPN services that's seems somewhat creepy, shady and unethical and with Data being like digital gold I think it's naive to assume they don't sell to third parties. Who is going to go to places like Panama and Romania to verify these claims lol? Even if you do, will they give anyone access to databases? I doubt it. It all depends on how much you trust them.

Do not trust free VPNs at all OP. They will not protect you. On the contrary, they'll likely be exposing your own IP and geolocation to places you wouldn't even imagine.

HoNeYBiRD said:

The country of the ip address is not relevant in this matter. As long as the VPN provider doesn't keep logs, any and every ip is safe. If logs are kept, no ip is safe, if there's an inquiry by law enforcement.

Click to expand...

Fixed.

@cavamedios, you're likely just one of many customers. If you're doing something illegal that can come back to bite them in the butt, why would they go out of their way to protect you and risk losing all their other paying customers in the event that their service gets shut down for allowing illegal activities to be performed on their network?

ProtonVPN is a true no log, I saw an article who explain the mindset of Proton.

Toz said:

Fixed.

@cavamedios, you're likely just one of many customers. If you're doing something illegal that can come back to bite them in the butt, why would they go out of their way to protect you and risk losing all their other paying customers in the event that their service gets shut down for allowing illegal activities to be performed on their network?

Click to expand...

No fix was needed.

Three words: data retention requirements. Some countries have them, others don't.

If the VPN service don't have logs, they can't provide them. It's simple as that. They log more or less data in the moment, when you use the service, the difference is that some of them don't keep the logs (for long).

For instance i remember this news story in Turkey a few years back, where a high profile crime was committed (a Russian ambassador was assassinated at a photo exhibition by a police officer, probably you remember the graphic viral video) and someone used ExpressVPN to delete evidence (social media posts and emails). The authorities traced the ip back to the VPN service, they seized the server, but they weren't able to find anything, because there were no logs. ExpressVPN is based in the British Virgin Islands with no data retention requirements, not too surprisingly.
https://www.expressvpn.com/blog/expressvpn-statement-andrey-karlov-investigation/