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Odd request: German DC which geo-locates to UK
I realize this is unlikely to yield any results, but I figured it couldn't hurt asking: does anyone have a VPS (~1G, 1CPU, nothing too beefy, just for VPN hopping) that is physically in Germany but appears to be geo-located in the UK? I realize this is unlikely, and even more unlikely to remain post-reboot, but I'm looking to exit from Germany but look like I'm in the UK and I know I've had issues the opposite way with Ionos (in the UK but geo-locating in DE).
Comments
It's a bit more complex than you think and has nothing to do with a simple server reboot. It all depends on which geoip database does the target service rely to geolocate its users.
RFC 8805 defines how providers may publish special geofeed file, effectively declaring where servers within certain subnets are physically located. You can see an example of such file here.
Most GeoIP providers regularly update and parse those geofeed entries and include them in their database. In such case, ASN owner/hosting provider has full control over how 3rd party databases locate their ranges.
Going into more complex territory, @Operable4829 / IPinfo has probenet - effectively a large network of probes measuring latency to each publicly accessible IPv4 address. Nowadays, a lot of services use ipinfo for geolocation purposes due to its accuracy, probably the most major one being Cloudflare. With this, the earlier approach may not be entirely possible given ipinfo does not fully trust the geofeed from provider.
Google also has its own system similar to the ipinfo's one [source1, source2]. It's being used for YouTube, Google Ads, Search and other services. While Google trusts the provider's published geofeed to a certain degree, if too many users are on the same subnet coming from a specific geolocation (different from one in geofeed), it may choose to update the subnet's geolocation in its own GeoIP DB. Google of course has more leverage because Google Services are running on millions of devices worldwide. It can accurately determine the location of the user based on GPS signals, known Wi-Fi networks or cell towers nearby.
So while it could be possible to find a provider incorrectly geolocated in the UK, but servers being in Germany, this would just be a mistake of specific GeoIP database. This mistake could be corrected at any time and it's not guaranteed to work in a long term and on every service.
Aside, Germany and UK are some of the most interconnected countries in Europe, hosting major internet exchanges. Germany<->UK should be around 15-20ms apart.
Maybe it could be worth looking for a server in the UK instead.