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Residential Proxies Are a National Security Threat

jacob.gold

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Re: Residential Proxies Are a National Security Threat

#31

Post by alightsoul »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #27
brikym wrote: post #16

They have their problems but how else am I supposed to scrape data from companies that want to hide it?

I'm a bit on the fence about this, but leaning towards the "bad luck". I'm sure there's a large swathe of nuance that I'm missing, but my simplistic view is: If they don't want to be scraped then they don't get included in "the thing" which, at minimum, is a data point for consumers to make consumer decisions about. It strongly depends on how scraped data is being used. If your 'cat' hasn't been able to catch their '…

Take reddit for example. If you're not big tech they ignore you.

Re: Residential Proxies Are a National Security Threat

#34

Post by BLKNSLVR »

armchairhacker wrote: post #26

Residential proxies are necessary to access services that try to ban VPNs without compromising anonymity. If they’re banned, it’s easier for websites to require information that can be used to track you (IP address), since most people don’t use VPNs they won’t care. More importantly, a residential proxy can be mutual. If a group of people agree to forward traffic to each others’ IP, how is it not their business? It o…

I think the fact that they're laymen means that there's still a pocket of non-consensuality. Taking advantage of someone's ignorance of potential consequences is as bad as malware in my opinion. If you're outlining all the potential bad outcomes before signing up a 'mark', then that's slightly more OK.

Myself being "not a layman" would definitely not allow anonymous usage of Internet that's tied to my home/residence/identity to be used by some internet rando just because they pay me money.

I would support, however, small family/friends groups who know and trust each other well enough to not do anything that'll cause a police raid on each others homes (having endured a police raid and the ensuing 8 months of not being told anything about the progress of whatever they're doing, it's not something I'd wish on a stranger, never mind a friend/family member).

Re: Residential Proxies Are a National Security Threat

#36

Post by BLKNSLVR »

alightsoul wrote: post #31
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit on the fence about this, but leaning towards the "bad luck". I'm sure there's a large swathe of nuance that I'm missing, but my simplistic view is: If they don't want to be scraped then they don't get included in "the thing" which, at minimum, is a data point for consumers to make consumer decisions about. It strongly depends on how scraped data is being used. If your 'cat' hasn't been able to catch their '…

Take reddit for example. If you're not big tech they ignore you.

I'm kinda "fuck reddit".

That's cutting the tether from a _lot_ (there's no way to overstate this) of useful information, but that's potentially one of the great things about the open AI/LLM models, is that all that info is baked in there.

Disclaimer: As far as I understand it. Please educate me if I'm way off the mark.

Also, how much of the content of reddit is in Common Crawl? (same disclaimer applies to this comment)

I also understand 'the archival mindset', I hoard a bunch of data. But I also understand the logarithmic graph of futility.

Re: Residential Proxies Are a National Security Threat

#37

Post by indianmouse »

Anything connected to network can become a national security threat. IoT devices, internet connected smart appliances and all. Computers that run some OS is least of the worry because of the various layers of protection that can be added to them. But it is not the case with the IoT devices or SMART(!) devices where, if the firmware or any app ecosystem gets hacked / cracked / modified or sideloaded without any user intervention, could turn into a large zombie C2C botnet that can cause havoc.

Proxying is least of the worries!

When manufacturers bring out the smart features that require constant data collection, monitoring (obviously in the name of service quality, troubleshooting, firmware / app updates and subscription of services (!!)), it is oblivious to the fact that security and privacy at a personal / state / national level is never considered (for various reasons such as the design, profit interests and overheads / compliance perspectives and what not!) to be part of the ecosystem. Bad actors with sufficient knowledge and tools could exploit and profit from it.

It has become more of a planned obsolescence / profit / greed based industrial / corporate culture in rolling out unwanted stuff / monitoring and controlling as a feature that gets exploited to the core.

Honesntly, I don't have an answer for that, but have some thoughts that I wanted to share.

I do not want a cleaning robot or a water purifier or a printer or a TV or a refrigerator or an oven or a smart light bulb or a smart lock or even my car to have undisclosed, unwarranted connectivity to internet for whatever reasons.

I do not care if it is the manufacture or the service provider or whomsoever it may be!

I want all of the network connectivity options to be explained with all the controlling options and boundaries and data collection that happens on any of the connected medium to be as much transparent with the option of preventing or restricting what one does not want to go out of the device.

Will anyone do that?

It ill never happen! Sadly!

This problem will balloon further without adequate controls and killing the networking at a ground level would only be the only solution!

But, in the case of a connected device having an inbuilt connectivity option (like the m2m based options) in a smart vehicle, even that is not possible!

Re: Residential Proxies Are a National Security Threat

#39

Post by BLKNSLVR »

harimau777 wrote: post #30
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit on the fence about this, but leaning towards the "bad luck". I'm sure there's a large swathe of nuance that I'm missing, but my simplistic view is: If they don't want to be scraped then they don't get included in "the thing" which, at minimum, is a data point for consumers to make consumer decisions about. It strongly depends on how scraped data is being used. If your 'cat' hasn't been able to catch their '…

I know there've been efforts to scrape information that MAGA is trying to purge from government websites.

Government website data should be openly available one way or another (at least within the country, and with reasonable security provision against obvious maliciousness).

If it has to be scraped then there may be other problems (which include lack of resources to make the data API accessible).

Re: Residential Proxies Are a National Security Threat

#40

Post by charcircuit »

LastTrain wrote: post #35
charcircuit wrote: post #32

If so many sites and services didn't go out of there way to block or flag VPN users as suspicious then I would have no need to use residential / mobile proxies.

That’s a weird way to justify fucking over an uninvolved third party.

>fucking over an uninvolved third party

No one is being hurt by someone sharing their internet with me a few times a week.

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