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Live proxy and VPN detection

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51–60 of 76 posts

Re: Live proxy and VPN detection

#51
post #28

This isn't accurate at all. From my iPhone with no vpn it says I'm on a vpn and a proxy. This changes each time I refresh the page.

some (most?) iphones use apple's private relay (akamai) in some capacity

not just akamai, they also partner with cloudflare

Re: Live proxy and VPN detection

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethically: Bad actors use a lot of things; that's a poor excuse for harming the innocent. Practically: The economics probably check out, but bear in mind that it's not one-sided; this will cost you legitimate users.

If the cost of fraud this stops is more than the lost cost of legitimate users..

But what if we can better methods that have lower cost of legitimate users?

Re: Live proxy and VPN detection

#54
post #48
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Please don't. Not just because of the false positives and false negatives, but because user privacy is actually a good thing. Like it or not, bad actors use VPNs as well, and for some businesses the adverse selection caused by VPNs basically makes banning VPNs a no-brainer (eg. due to fraud).

Bad actors use windows computers. We should ban all windows users from the internet. And android. I don’t want these poor people racking up my bandwidth costs when they’re not profitable data cows I can exploit or at least compel to buy something.

If you read my previous comment carefully, you'll notice claim isn't "sites ban VPNs because baddies use it", it's "it's sites ban VPNs because enough baddies use it compared to normal users that it outweighs the downsides of banning them wholesale".

Re: Live proxy and VPN detection

#55
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Please don't. Not just because of the false positives and false negatives, but because user privacy is actually a good thing. Like it or not, bad actors use VPNs as well, and for some businesses the adverse selection caused by VPNs basically makes banning VPNs a no-brainer (eg. due to fraud).

Ethically: Bad actors use a lot of things; that's a poor excuse for harming the innocent. Practically: The economics probably check out, but bear in mind that it's not one-sided; this will cost you legitimate users.

> Ethically: Bad actors use a lot of things; that's a poor excuse for harming the innocent.

Should I be able to walk around stores wearing balaclavas? Sure, robbers wear balaclavas, but innocent people do too.

Re: Live proxy and VPN detection

#56
post #48
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Please don't. Not just because of the false positives and false negatives, but because user privacy is actually a good thing. Like it or not, bad actors use VPNs as well, and for some businesses the adverse selection caused by VPNs basically makes banning VPNs a no-brainer (eg. due to fraud).

Bad actors use windows computers. We should ban all windows users from the internet. And android. I don’t want these poor people racking up my bandwidth costs when they’re not profitable data cows I can exploit or at least compel to buy something.

That's a bit heavy-handed. Can't we just get people to attach their salaries to HTTP requests? X-Milk-Me maybe. Much more fine-grained.

Re: Live proxy and VPN detection

#57
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethically: Bad actors use a lot of things; that's a poor excuse for harming the innocent. Practically: The economics probably check out, but bear in mind that it's not one-sided; this will cost you legitimate users.

> Ethically: Bad actors use a lot of things; that's a poor excuse for harming the innocent. Should I be able to walk around stores wearing balaclavas? Sure, robbers wear balaclavas, but innocent people do too.

The way facial recognition's going, there's a case for it tbh. Or at least the standard hoodie-up-head-down-baseball-cap uniform of today's teenager.

Re: Live proxy and VPN detection

#58
post #28

This isn't accurate at all. From my iPhone with no vpn it says I'm on a vpn and a proxy. This changes each time I refresh the page.

some (most?) iphones use apple's private relay (akamai) in some capacity

Is that on by default? IIRC I had to manually turn it on, but my current iphone has been "migrated" from an older model since before this was a thing.

Re: Live proxy and VPN detection

#60
The timezone test is an interesting one I hadn't really considered until now. It was the only one that detected me as traveling internationally when using my home router's VPN.

Interestingly, Google One VPN is also not detected. I suspect that's due to Google intentionally sharing that IP range with Google Fi.

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