A dummies primer on IP addressing:
(For simplicity and visualization, assume you just hit the fold button, and the info about you hitting the fold button is sent as part of the data in a packet.)
Data/info are sent in packets. Packet sizes have varied over the years, they are bigger now than they used to be.
Software at both ends processes the data into and out of packet and in doing so adds or remove (and record) an address to/from it. So your PC has an address added to the packet. The packet is sent out and collects more addresses. Your modem or router adds an address, your ISP adds an address, possibly routers in the clouds add addresses (but these are less important as the path to the destination does not have to be the same as the return reply).
At the destination, the addresses are stripped from the packet until only the data/info part remains. Some action is processed and at bare minimum, an acknowledgment is sent in reply.
Each of the public addresses (cloud routers/ISP's) are identifiable as physical locations. So in theory, you could take you Laptop out of the questionable locations and replace those public US based IP addresses, with international IP addresses. But when you sign up, the IP addressing your PC does (always the same #) is fixed and associated with your physical (snail mail type) street address.
Destination systems (i.e. the
poker site systems) record each and every packet received and easily know where it came from and who (according to each login).
In the cloud, the whole system is run by tables, which show where each and every 'node' ( a spot where a decision is made determining where a packet is going) physically exists in the world. In some cases that table shows entered physical addresses, in most cases it is easy to determine that node B lies between node A and node C and if the locations of node A and node C are known, node B's location can be inferred. Otherwise what happens in the cloud is un-important.
A proxy server works at masking the physical location of the origination packet by first transferring the packet to the proxy server, which strips all the originating addresses on that packet, and then sends the packet out as if it originated at the proxy server.
Sounds easy huh? NOT. The final destination back to your PC will by necessity have to contain the local IP address which contain you PC, your Modem/Router and your ISP addresses. At the poker site end, there will be a way to associate your login, with the IP addressing that encases your 'fold' action. In otherwords, the site has to know where to send the reply "fold acknowledged" to. It is to you, according to your login ID (and info) via your PC (even if only a location, cuz you might be playing on the public library PC).
All of this still points to you being a US resident.
Special purpose private proxy sites could exist. But they are private, and well controlled and probably expensive. They would/could use a VPN (virtual private network) which would allow a select few to act as if they were sitting at a computer somewhere other than where they actually are.
But in order for you to use those, you would have to set up a whole identity in another country, just so you could start a brand new account. New physical address, new bank account and all the other proofs the sites were using.
It would be easier to actually move there........
