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No one's said this clearly so I will. oxylabs.io as described in this article is an awful unethical company and should be investigated for criminal activity. If

No one's said this clearly so I will. oxylabs.io as described in this article is an awful unethical company and should be investigated for criminal activity. If NordVPN is using them to bypass DRM controls, that's pretty ugly. The central concern is how they get their 32M "residential proxies". I spent a few minutes trying to get an answer and could not find one. The article straight up assumes it's coming from malware, which certainly seems possible. I could also imagine them buying legitimate access from ISPs but given the various legal and technical issues involved it seems less likely. Is there anything directly connecting Oxylabs to malware? Again I looked for a few minutes and didn't find anything clear. I did find a couple of troubling posts on Reddit from Android Devs saying Oxylabs approached them offering to "monetize your users with our SDK", which sounds like the slippery slope to malware. Or at least bundleware without meaningful consent. https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/ajfc7w/question_about_oxylabs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/ajfc7w/question... https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/ao27tu/my_app_with_1million_installs_and_100k_monthly/ https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/ao27tu/my_app_w... BTW, Oxynet has a list of the ASNs they have proxies on: https://intro.oxylabs.io/hc/en-us/articles/360003444780-Supported-ASN-List https://intro.oxylabs.io/hc/en-us/articles/360003444780-Supp...

berbec 7y ago
Isn't it likely a non-zero percent of those residential IPs are from other NordVPN clients? Or anyone who installed their app on their device?
bootloop 7y ago
I would guess it's from services like the Hola VPN browser extension provides. It was always clear that these services need to make money somehow. Next to providing tunnels to their own users they will sell them to others. Not sure if this is really unethical.
spyder 7y ago
From the patent infringement document: "... Upon information and belief, the above OxyLabs embedded code has been integrated in at least the following software applications that may be downloaded by any user located anywhere having Internet access: AppAspect Technologies’ “EMI Calculator” and “Automatic Call Recorder”; Birrastorming Ideas, S.L’s “IPTV Manager for VL;” CC Soft’s “Followers Tool for Instagram;” Glidesoft Technologies’ “Route Finder;” ImaTechInnovations’ “3D Wallpaper Parallax 2018;” and Softmate a/k/a Toolbarstudio Inc.’s “AppGeyser” and “Toolbarstudio.”" https://cdn-resprivacy.pressidium.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Luminati-Networks-LTD-vs-UAB-Tesonet.pdf https://cdn-resprivacy.pressidium.com/wp-content/uploads/201... Looking at few of these app's descriptions and privacy policy, doesn't mention anything about oxylabs or proxies, so I'm not sure it's true, but somebody should check the apps with decompiler or monitoring the connections it makes.
gitgud 7y ago
Sound similar to the proxy network [1] Luminati, which use an SDK which developers get paid to embed in their Apps, in order to route proxy traffic through... Kind of like a Tor network... [1] https://luminati.io/proxy-networks/mobile-ips https://luminati.io/proxy-networks/mobile-ips

berbec 7y ago

Isn't it likely a non-zero percent of those residential IPs are from other NordVPN clients? Or anyone who installed their app on their device?

bootloop 7y ago

I would guess it's from services like the Hola VPN browser extension provides. It was always clear that these services need to make money somehow. Next to providing tunnels to their own users they will sell them to others. Not sure if this is really unethical.

spyder 7y ago

From the patent infringement document: "... Upon information and belief, the above OxyLabs embedded code has been integrated in at least the following software applications that may be downloaded by any user located anywhere having Internet access: AppAspect Technologies’ “EMI Calculator” and “Automatic Call Recorder”; Birrastorming Ideas, S.L’s “IPTV Manager for VL;” CC Soft’s “Followers Tool for Instagram;” Glidesoft Technologies’ “Route Finder;” ImaTechInnovations’ “3D Wallpaper Parallax 2018;” and Softmate a/k/a Toolbarstudio Inc.’s “AppGeyser” and “Toolbarstudio.”" https://cdn-resprivacy.pressidium.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Luminati-Networks-LTD-vs-UAB-Tesonet.pdf https://cdn-resprivacy.pressidium.com/wp-content/uploads/201... Looking at few of these app's descriptions and privacy policy, doesn't mention anything about oxylabs or proxies, so I'm not sure it's true, but somebody should check the apps with decompiler or monitoring the connections it makes.

gitgud 7y ago

Sound similar to the proxy network [1] Luminati, which use an SDK which developers get paid to embed in their Apps, in order to route proxy traffic through... Kind of like a Tor network... [1] https://luminati.io/proxy-networks/mobile-ips https://luminati.io/proxy-networks/mobile-ips