From IP release to IP proxy, IP Territory Wanderer

Image source @ Visual China

The text | state the fundamentals

Recently, the liberalization of IP territories, although many Internet celebrities "emperor's new clothes" have been unveiled, so that "offshore patriotism" has nothing to hide, but with the overturning of many Internet celebrities, the business of modifying IP territories has also emerged spontaneously. The so-called "IP business" is to use technical means to "disguise" the IP territory, which is also known as "IP proxy".

At present, paid IP agents have formed a black and gray industrial chain. At present, on some e-commerce platforms, there has been a paid IP agent business, the purpose of which is obvious, directly indicating that the IP ownership of Weibo and Douyin can be changed. Among them, the lowest price is only 4 yuan / day, and the highest sales have exceeded 100,000 copies.

How were IP dependencies modified? What challenges will the IP territories that can be modified at will bring to the "liberalization of IP territories"?

IP Wanderer

Where there is demand, there is a market. In March this year, in order to effectively identify the true and false information in the Russian-Ukrainian war, Weibo first launched the "display user IP territory" function, although it is a beta version and is partial, but it has also become a precursor to the release of IP territory. On April 28, Sina's official Weibo official weibo officially released the announcement of IP territorial function upgrade. The announcement said that the full display of comment IP territory, personal home page display account IP territory.

In addition to Weibo, on April 29, the WeChat public platform, Douyin, Today's Headlines, and Xiaohongshu have also launched the "Display User IP Territory" function. In addition, many platforms such as Zhihu, Baijia, Douban and Kuaishou have also announced the gradual opening of the function of "IP territorial display". The IP territories of these platforms are also displayed in full, and the judgment rules are the IP territories corresponding to the users when posting and commenting.

Under the sudden opening of the IP territory, the major Internet celebrities have also appeared in their original form. In particular, many big Vs who are certified as "local info bloggers" and "overseas info bloggers" have a situation where the IP territory does not match the data address. On Weibo, there are many overseas information bloggers whose IP addresses are displayed in a certain place in a certain province in China, which makes netizens call "overturning". Subsequently, related topics rushed to the hot search.

It is worth mentioning that among many bloggers who claim to be in foreign countries, the frequency of IP territories showing Henan is higher, which also makes netizens jokingly call "overseas information in Henan". And "Xi'an eat, drink and play", "Guangzhou life of Guangzhou people", "Chongqing eat and drink life", "Shanghai eat and drink sea shopping life" and many other accounts that eat and drink and play across the country, IP territory is displayed as Hunan.

Under the protection of IP territory, "offshore patriotism" is also hidden. Some Internet celebrities who have published pro-China remarks in the past have been marked as foreign countries, including the big V "Lian Yue" who has repeatedly published articles criticizing foreign countries in the past, and the latest article criticizing Japan has been marked as published in Japan. In addition, the "Emperor Bar" network army, which has repeatedly targeted different criticisms of China's voices, was once marked as "Taiwan", and later became "Hong Kong," China.

With the rollover of many Internet celebrities, the business of modifying IP has been born, and IP Wanderer has also been staged. A number of self-media began to take the initiative to change the IP attribution, and the business behind the change of attribution also surfaced.

On May 6, the Beijing News shell financial reporter found that on a second-hand e-commerce platform, searching for "IP" as a keyword popped up many options that could change the IP address of the mobile phone or computer. When the Beijing News shell financial reporter asked whether to support changing the IP territory of Weibo in yesterday's interview, a merchant told reporters that it supports changing the IP territory, and the IP price of each device (computer, mobile phone) is at least 12 yuan, and 2 devices are sold.

According to Sanyan Finance's test of modifying the IP agent of a store, before using the IP agent function, a comment was posted on Douyin, and the IP territory was first displayed as Beijing. After you turn on the feature, post another comment. Only a minute later, the IP territory became Guangdong. In this store, the test to modify the IP territory is free and valid for one hour. If you want to continue to use, the renewal rate of the package is: 5 yuan / day, 30 yuan / week, 90 yuan / month, 250 yuan / quarter, 800 yuan / year.

It can be said that with the help of IP proxy services, IP wandering has begun, sitting on the ground for eighty thousand miles a day, teleporting to countries around the world, and it is no longer a dream.

The truth about IP proxies

In fact, the wandering of the IP territory has begun from the opening of the IP territory. From the perspective of the accuracy of IP territory, after so many platforms open IP territory display, some netizens found that their positioning was not quite right. In this regard, Weibo officials said that "positioning is based on the analysis of operator IP information.".

Specifically, the IP address is the address of everyone when they are on the Internet, and this address is the protocol of the Internet. The most fundamental logical rule of the Internet is that every Internet device, whether it is a server or a desktop computer or a mobile phone, has a fixed IP address. This IP address can be understood as the house number of each of our families. On the Internet we want to visit a website and receive certain information, we must have such an address in order for us to receive the information we want.

Among them, the creation and maintenance of IP positioning database is a technical activity and is part of cyberspace mapping. Before this large-scale open IP territory display, major Internet companies have been used to make user portraits, customize personalized content, and their own business anti-traffic attacks, fraud and other security protection.

Typically provided by specialized third-party technology companies, they work with telecom operators and cloud computing vendors to obtain data and provide update maintenance. Internet companies buy databases directly from them, or rent query API interfaces on a multi-channel basis. In this regard, the more well-known domestic IPIP.NET and pure IP data, according to public information, Zhihu and Douban, who are about to be opened for display, are IPIP.NET customers.

In this process, the user's device normally accesses a website, the website's server will detect the user's local IP, and through the IP proxy for IP replacement, the user's device is first connected to the proxy server, and then by the proxy server to help the user access the website. Because of the transit through the proxy, the visited website server detects the IP address of the proxy, rather than the IP address of the user itself.

In fact, IP proxies are not an emerging service, they have been around before. The reason is also the demand. For some users, from the user's IP address to access a certain website, the personal IP may be due to the large number of users, insufficient broadband and other reasons, stuttering. At this time, there is a necessity for IP proxy technical service agencies.

That is, the IP proxy, as a third party, can access the addresses that the user needs to access on behalf of the individual user. Ip proxy access is more likely, the efficiency and accuracy of access is higher, the agent's IP replaces the individual to access, and then pass the information to the individual - in the past, the IP proxy, has such a function that is conducive to people to quickly and accurately and clearly accept information on the Internet.

Moreover, proxy IP also has an important security function, that is, it acts as a firewall. In particular, high-quality proxy IP has great benefits for the network, including functions such as resisting computer viruses, preventing hacker attacks, and setting different access rights.

Of course, before, there were also many criminals who used proxy dynamic IP to change the IP address logged in to different areas in the environment, and used false servers to spread rumors, commit fraud, involve pornography and drugs, and other illegal and criminal acts. Now, with the liberalization of IP territory, this IP proxy in Internet applications, including this address modification, is further known.

Challenges and risks that cannot be ignored

It can be seen that for now, whether it is the liberalization of IP territory or the emergence of IP proxy business, it is still immature.

On the one hand, although the liberalization of IP territory is convenient for the responsibility of bad information publishers, and can also be responsible for netizens, IP territorial display is only a technical means, it is impossible to solve the problem once and for all, and even to prevent secondary problems, such as the challenges brought by IP proxy business, including how to avoid some people who habitually publish false information on the network to use virtual IP tools to bypass this mechanism.

In response to this, regulatory intervention is required to enable relevant Internet companies to come up with more powerful measures, such as establishing complete and systematic notification procedures and relief procedures, including informing users when to disclose IP territory, to what extent to disclose it, and what remedies can be taken when problems arise after disclosure.

On the other hand, from the perspective of IP proxy business, and for individuals, the use of proxy servers still has the risk of personal information leakage, after the use of black proxy IP, hackers and viruses will be easier to enter the host of individual users and obtain personal information. Once the criminals obtain this personal information, it is likely to be used for cybercrime activities, which will eventually cause losses to people's personal and property safety.

In addition, for the agent industry that modifies the IP, if the personal information or IP address and other data are leaked, it will involve administrative violations; and if it also affects the normal operation of the computer system, the consequences or the circumstances are serious, it may also be suspected of the crime of destroying the computer information system; the seller illegally operates the IP agency industry and seriously disrupts the order of market operation, which may be suspected of non-illegal business crimes.

At the same time, the industry of modifying IP addresses has also provided great convenience for cybercrime activities. If the seller knows that others are using the network to commit crimes, but also provides them with corresponding technical support, modify IP addresses and other services, if the circumstances are serious, it may be suspected of helping information network criminal activities. The Ministry of Public Security announced at the "Clean Net 2021" work conference that it would work with relevant departments to investigate and deal with 146 online television platforms, shut down more than 13,000 illegal broadband and more than 5,000 broadband Internet accounts.

For the service of paid IP agents, at present, some platforms have cleaned up and compressed this gray production transaction space through technical means such as blocking keyword search. It is foreseeable that next, in addition to expanding the scope of keyword blocking, the platform may also cut off relevant transaction channels by increasing the review and punishment of merchants.

Undoubtedly, the publication of IP territory is conducive to preventing fraud (such as foreign criminals pretending to contact public prosecutorial and legal organs), and facilitating users to identify false information (such as domestic users disguising themselves as people outside the country to make remarks), which can be said to have considerations of public interest and risk control considerations of enterprises. However, the liberalization of IP territories will not be in place in one step, how to implement the liberalization of IP territories and avoid secondary risks may have just taken the first step.