Introducing Open Proxy Insights

Would you like the ability to identify when users visit your site from an open proxy? You may, especially if your site includes payment checkout, sign-up for services, secure login, or any non-anonymous forum where sign-in is not required.

For instance, if your site includes payment processing, being able to identify a user from a presently active public proxy could help in identifying fraud. Or, if you have a contest site and you don’t want entrants to be able to game the system, having the ability to identify a proxied user would be one tool in the prevention tool belt.

This is exactly what prompted us to create Open Proxy Insights. By simply including a JavaScript tag, our new offering provides web developers with access to a trusted service to determine if a site visitor is using an open proxy. Data is backed by actual testing, not third party look-ups. If you are alerted a user is from an IP address presently or previously testing positive for being an open proxy, you then have the ability to provide appropriate alternate workflows or messaging.

Of course, there are some limitations to our new offering. For instance, this only covers one type of network attribution and does not cover TOR, private proxies, or private/public VPNs. In addition, our tool does not take into account the reputation of the IP address nor does it pick up on other clues that could be used to determine active cloaking attempts.

I encourage web developers with a working knowledge of javascript to learn more about this tool, and where we see it heading in the future.