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For some (large, especially) sites, the IP address maps to the entity you're trying to contact. For others (small, especially) sites, the IP address is shared a
by hunter2_ 7y ago
For some (large, especially) sites, the IP address maps to the entity you're trying to contact. For others (small, especially) sites, the IP address is shared among many entities... not just shared origin hosts but also the massive reverse proxies of the world (Cloudflare, etc.).
- zzzcpan 7y agoThere is an actual research on this. More than 90% of alexa's top 1 million websites (more like 95% or so) are uniquely identifiable just by IP addresses you connect to when you visit them. This is not a single IP address per website, but multiple, because websites include subresources with other IP addresses to connect to. On top of that, there is a pressure on CDNs and clouds to make websites stick to specific IP addresses and make them blockable by IP addresses without affecting other customers. So far they have proven to not go against this pressure and even made technical solutions to aid governments to identify websites by IP addresses, in particular by fixing L7 routing layer to block domain fronting (which is important, because ESNI is basically domain fronting, but crappy, and the pressure didn't go anywhere, so there is the same pressure to make sure ESNI doesn't interfere with identification of websites you are visiting).
- wolco 7y agoHow would they force cloud providers customers to host on an ip? Do you envision restrictig new instances with manual approvals required?
- judge2020 7y agoAlso, Cloudflare does give Business and Enterprise customers their own IP addresses (although often rotated) so that these sites work with old non-SNI browsers.