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Hello, A (different) proxy company owner here. This sucks! Sorry that you lost out on so much bandwidth. Feel free to reach out to me at tim@pingproxies.com a

Hello, A (different) proxy company owner here. This sucks! Sorry that you lost out on so much bandwidth. Feel free to reach out to me at tim@pingproxies.com and I'd be happy to get you set up on our service and credit you with 100GB of free bandwidth to help soften the blow. I'll also be able to get you pricing alittle better than you're currently on if you are interested ;) Within the next few months we're also releasing a bunch of tools to help stop things like this happening on our residential network such as some intelligent routing logic, spend controls and a few other things. You may also want to look into Static Residential ISP Proxies - we charge these per IP address rather than bandwidth and they often end up more economical. We work with carriers like Spectrum, Comcast & AT&T directly to get IP addresses on their networks so they look like residential connections but host them in datacenters - this way you get 99.99%+ availability, 1G+ throughput, stable IP addresses and have unlimited bandwidth. @ everyone else in the thread; if you run a start-up and need proxies then email me - happy to credit you with 50GB free residential bandwidth + give some advice on infra if needed. Cheers, Tim at Ping

SteveNuts 2y ago
I’m interested to know how your residential connections are sourced. It says they’re “ethically sourced”, but it seems like malware/botnet like behavior. Are these residential users aware their traffic is siphoned off for this purpose?
- chimen 2y ago
  They are never ethically sourced. Ethically for them means placing a phrase in a 10k word TOS when victims installs app X, game y which loads their sdk. Ethically here means "we warned them in a TOS"
  - LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago
    Huh? > We work with carriers like Spectrum, Comcast & AT&T directly to get IP addresses on their networks so they look like residential connections but host them in datacenters - this way you get 99.99%+ availability, 1G+ throughput, stable IP addresses and have unlimited bandwidth.
    - chimen 2y ago
      mhm, meanwhile his website says he has "Access our 115+ Million proxy network." huh?
      - pests 2y ago
        I feel like everyone takes statements at 100% truth without ever considering the context or the source. A single reply with nothing but a quote from the person under investigation is apparently enough to squash all wrongdoing.
      - wolpoli 2y ago
        I know it's not what they mean, but 115+ million IPv6 addresses easily fit in a /64.
- tim_at_ping 2y ago
  Our main business is Static ISP Proxies; here we liaise directly with datacenters and carriers such as ATT, Comcast and others to bring subnets to their network and we'll then purchase IP transit from them. We do also have residential peer proxies available - you're right to have ethical concerns as there are bad actors out their that effectively build botnets and spread malware to get their nodes but the industry has developed a lot over the last few years and there are numerous companies, including ourselves, which have pretty strict ethical guidelines. Their are three main ways to ethically source real residential nodes: 1. Direct payment to peers for traffic sent through their devices. There are several networks like EarnApp, Honey, Pawns and others where people can sign up and earn money for bandwidth sent through their devices. We liaise with these networks to add nodes to our pool. 2. Quid pro quo with peer through providing free apps in return for the ability to route traffic through their devices. We don't currently engage in this method but we are planning on doing so within the next 12 months through a free VPN - the important thing here is that peers have to understand what they're signing up for in return for the free service - as long as you're upfront, then it is my belief that their is informed consent and it is therefore ethical; there is often a good value proposition to the customer in these cases i.e spend $7 a month on a paid VPN service or get a free one in return for exchanging a small amount of bandwidth which has zero marginal cost. 3. Offer SDK to developers to monetize applications - this is pretty common and while it is similar to 2. - the ability to distribute the SDK to various developers makes it easier to get a large number of peers online. Again though, its important app developers provide notice of this to their users and most reputable SDK providers have strict guidelines and mandatory screens that must be shown to end users prior to registering them as a residential proxy node. There is also a lot of other things that are involved with making an ethical network - a big thing is to just signal that bad actors and criminals aren't welcome on your network. This is usually done by banning certain domains; for example, we ban all .edu and .gov domains as well as most banking/finance websites + are a member of the Internet Watch Foundation and block their listed domains. This has stops bad actors from using our proxy network for evil + protects peers in the network from bad activity going through their devices. Happy to answer any other questions if you have them :)
  - greyface- 2y ago
    Are you concerned with this activity being prohibited by the AUP of your users' ISP? Do you allow eyeball ASes to opt out of having their network resold in this way?
- 9cb14c1ec0 2y ago
  Literally everyone says they use ethical sourcing, but I never believe that about any residential proxy service without solid proof.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  It can't be ethically sourced, because these residential users have to be tricked into violating the TOS of their ISP to be able to provide the bandwidth. Whether they are aware of it or not, they are risking losing their internet access.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

SteveNuts 2y ago

I’m interested to know how your residential connections are sourced. It says they’re “ethically sourced”, but it seems like malware/botnet like behavior. Are these residential users aware their traffic is siphoned off for this purpose?

chimen 2y ago
They are never ethically sourced. Ethically for them means placing a phrase in a 10k word TOS when victims installs app X, game y which loads their sdk. Ethically here means "we warned them in a TOS"
- LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago
  Huh? > We work with carriers like Spectrum, Comcast & AT&T directly to get IP addresses on their networks so they look like residential connections but host them in datacenters - this way you get 99.99%+ availability, 1G+ throughput, stable IP addresses and have unlimited bandwidth.
  - chimen 2y ago
    mhm, meanwhile his website says he has "Access our 115+ Million proxy network." huh?
    - pests 2y ago
      I feel like everyone takes statements at 100% truth without ever considering the context or the source. A single reply with nothing but a quote from the person under investigation is apparently enough to squash all wrongdoing.
    - wolpoli 2y ago
      I know it's not what they mean, but 115+ million IPv6 addresses easily fit in a /64.
tim_at_ping 2y ago
Our main business is Static ISP Proxies; here we liaise directly with datacenters and carriers such as ATT, Comcast and others to bring subnets to their network and we'll then purchase IP transit from them. We do also have residential peer proxies available - you're right to have ethical concerns as there are bad actors out their that effectively build botnets and spread malware to get their nodes but the industry has developed a lot over the last few years and there are numerous companies, including ourselves, which have pretty strict ethical guidelines. Their are three main ways to ethically source real residential nodes: 1. Direct payment to peers for traffic sent through their devices. There are several networks like EarnApp, Honey, Pawns and others where people can sign up and earn money for bandwidth sent through their devices. We liaise with these networks to add nodes to our pool. 2. Quid pro quo with peer through providing free apps in return for the ability to route traffic through their devices. We don't currently engage in this method but we are planning on doing so within the next 12 months through a free VPN - the important thing here is that peers have to understand what they're signing up for in return for the free service - as long as you're upfront, then it is my belief that their is informed consent and it is therefore ethical; there is often a good value proposition to the customer in these cases i.e spend $7 a month on a paid VPN service or get a free one in return for exchanging a small amount of bandwidth which has zero marginal cost. 3. Offer SDK to developers to monetize applications - this is pretty common and while it is similar to 2. - the ability to distribute the SDK to various developers makes it easier to get a large number of peers online. Again though, its important app developers provide notice of this to their users and most reputable SDK providers have strict guidelines and mandatory screens that must be shown to end users prior to registering them as a residential proxy node. There is also a lot of other things that are involved with making an ethical network - a big thing is to just signal that bad actors and criminals aren't welcome on your network. This is usually done by banning certain domains; for example, we ban all .edu and .gov domains as well as most banking/finance websites + are a member of the Internet Watch Foundation and block their listed domains. This has stops bad actors from using our proxy network for evil + protects peers in the network from bad activity going through their devices. Happy to answer any other questions if you have them :)
- greyface- 2y ago
  Are you concerned with this activity being prohibited by the AUP of your users' ISP? Do you allow eyeball ASes to opt out of having their network resold in this way?
9cb14c1ec0 2y ago
Literally everyone says they use ethical sourcing, but I never believe that about any residential proxy service without solid proof.
Suppafly 2y ago
It can't be ethically sourced, because these residential users have to be tricked into violating the TOS of their ISP to be able to provide the bandwidth. Whether they are aware of it or not, they are risking losing their internet access.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]