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Just curious, how do they detect the fact that the connection is from a VPN? Are they subscribing to IP blacklists, or is there some other method?
by enraged_camel 6y ago
Just curious, how do they detect the fact that the connection is from a VPN? Are they subscribing to IP blacklists, or is there some other method?
- crazygringo 6y agoYes, it's IP blacklists AFAIK. And for sites with a lot of traffic, you probably don't even need an external subscription, you can deduce the ranges yourself simply by checking for IP addresses that wind up having logged-in users from all over the world in a short time frame. Pretty easy to do accurately with a short set of heuristics.
- gcoleman 6y agoMany geo-ip services also offer VPN or server detection (e.g. is the IP in one of the EC2 ranges). In a previous job at an online gambling company we found that a large percentage of fraudulent user accounts came from VPNs so ended up banning them at the geo lookup stage.
- gjsman-1000 6y agoEasy. How many users are logging in from the same IP address is a big clue.
- penagwin 6y agoIP addresses are assigned in blocks, and these blocks are assigned to registered companies - Long story short you can roughly determine whether an IP address is from a datacenter or is "residential" without too much issue - All DigitalOcean droplets are given IP addresses within DO's range for example. Basically if the IP is from a datacenter - it's likely a VPN.