If outgoing packets that leave a VPN node contain my endpoint’s IP address - which it must, since how else would it later be routed back to me - how does the location of the VPN exit node spoof my endpoint’s real location? Isn’t it obvious when the receiver inspects the packets what/where the source IP is?
If my endpoint’s IP address is not included in the packets that exit the VPN tunnel, how then does that same node - or other nodes in case of multi hop - route the packets back to my endpoint? Are there perhaps VPN specific identifiers in the packet that only that node knows how to route back to me?
i believe this is because your vpn connection is assignd its own ip by the vpn provider… like an internal temp address… their system routes all the traffic back to that internal address which they usually dont keep logs for.
the outbound packets dont contain your actual external ip… they only contain the vpns internal ip for your connection… maybe