IP territorial wanderings, IP business is on the rise
arts/
Recently, the release of IP territories has revealed many Internet celebrities' "emperor's new clothes", making "offshore patriotism" invisible, but with the rollover of many Internet celebrity V, the business of modifying IP territories has also become a reality. spontaneously. The so-called "IP business" is to use technical means to "camouflage" IP territories, which is also called "IP proxy".
At present, paid IP agents have formed a black and gray industry chain . At present, on some e-commerce platforms, paid IP proxy services have appeared, and the purpose is obvious, directly indicating that the IP attribution of Weibo and Douyin can be changed. Among them, the lowest price is only 4 yuan / day, and the highest sales volume has exceeded 100,000 copies.
How are IP territories modified? And what kind of challenges will IP territories that can be modified at will to "releasing IP territories"?
IP Wanderlust
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 function of "displaying user IP territories". First sound. On April 28, Sina's official Weibo officially released the IP territorial function upgrade announcement. The announcement stated that all comment IPs will be displayed, and the personal homepage will display account IPs.
In addition to Weibo, on April 29, the WeChat public platform, Douyin, Toutiao, and Xiaohongshu have also launched the "Display User IP Territory" function. In addition, many platforms such as Zhihu, Baijiahao, 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 unexpected opening of IP territories, major Internet celebrities have also shown their original shape . In particular, many big Vs who are certified as "local information bloggers" and "overseas information bloggers" have encountered situations where the IP territorial and data addresses do not match. On Weibo, there are many overseas information bloggers whose IP addresses are displayed in a certain province or place in China, which makes netizens call it "overturned". Immediately, related topics rushed to the hot search.
It is worth mentioning that among the many bloggers who claim to be abroad, the IP territory shows Henan more frequently, which also makes netizens jokingly call "overseas information in Henan". In addition, for “Eating, Drinking and Playing in Xi’an”, “Guangzhou People’s Life in Guangzhou”, “Eating and Drinking in Chongqing”, “Shanghai Eating, Drinking and Shopping Life” and many other food, drink and entertainment accounts from all over the country, the IP territories are all displayed as Hunan.
Without IP territorial protection, "offshore patriotism" has nothing to hide . Some internet celebrities who have made remarks in support of China in the past have been marked as being in foreign countries, including "Lian Yue," a celebrity who has published articles criticizing foreign countries many times in the past. The latest article criticizing Japan was marked as being published in Japan. In addition, the "Emperor Bar" Internet Army, which has repeatedly criticized Chinese voices, was once marked as "China Taiwan", and later became "China Hong Kong".
With the overturning of many Internet celebrities and big Vs, the business of modifying IP came into being, and IP wandering was also staged. A number of self-media began to actively change the IP attribution, and the business experience behind the change of attribution also surfaced.
On May 6, the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter found that on a second-hand e-commerce platform, searching with "IP" as the key word popped up many options that can change the IP address of a mobile phone or computer. When a reporter from Shell Finance and Economics of the Beijing News asked whether they supported changing the IP location of Weibo in an interview yesterday, a businessman told the reporter that they supported changing the IP location. The IP price of each device (computer, mobile phone) is at least 12 yuan, 2 devices to sell.
According to the IP proxy modification test of a store by Sanyan Finance, before using the IP proxy function, a comment was posted on Douyin, and the IP territory was first displayed as Beijing. Once the feature is turned on, post another comment. Only one minute later, the IP territory became Guangdong. In this store, it is free to test and modify the IP territory, and the valid time is one hour. If you want to continue to use it, the renewal package standard 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 started, and it is no longer a dream to travel 80,000 miles a day and teleport to all parts of the world.
The truth about IP proxies
In fact, the wandering of IP territories has already started from the opening of IP territories. Judging from the accuracy of IP territorial, after so many platforms open IP territorial display, some netizens find that their positioning is not right. In this regard, the official Weibo said, "The positioning is analyzed according to the operator's IP information."
Specifically, the IP address is the address of each person when they surf 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, 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 homes. On the Internet, if we want to visit a certain website and receive certain information, we must have such an address so that we may receive the information we want.
Among them, the creation and maintenance of IP positioning database is a technical activity, which is a part of cyberspace mapping. Before this large-scale open IP territorial display, major Internet companies have already used it to do user portraits, customize personalized content, and protect their own business against traffic attacks and fraud.
Generally provided by professional third-party technology companies, they will cooperate with telecom operators and cloud computing vendors to obtain data and provide update and maintenance. And Internet companies buy databases directly from them, or rent query API interfaces on a per-count basis. In this regard, IPIP.NET and Pure IP data are relatively well-known in China. According to public information, Zhihu and Douban, which are about to be displayed, are both IPIP.NET customers.
In this process, the user's device normally accesses a website, the server of the website will detect the user's local IP, and the IP is replaced through the IP proxy. The user's device is first connected to the proxy server, and then the proxy server Help users access the website. In this way, because of the transfer through the proxy, the visited website server will naturally detect the IP address from the proxy, not the user's own IP.
In fact, IP proxy is not a new service, it has already appeared before. The reason is the demand. For some users, when accessing a certain website from the user's IP address, the personal IP may be stuck due to various reasons such as many users and insufficient bandwidth. At this time, there is the necessity of IP proxy technical service organization.
That is to say, the IP proxy, as a third party, can access the addresses that the user needs to access on behalf of the user. The IP proxy has more possibilities and the efficiency and accuracy of the access is higher. The IP of the proxy replaces the individual to visit, and then transmits the information to the individual. In the past, the IP proxy had such a system that is beneficial to people on the Internet. Such a function of receiving information quickly, accurately and clearly .
In addition, the proxy IP also has an important security function, that is, it acts as a firewall. In particular, a high-quality proxy IP has great benefits for the network, including resisting computer viruses, preventing hacker attacks, and setting different access permissions.
Of course, before that, there were also many criminals who used proxy dynamic IP, changed the IP address in different regions of the environment, used fake servers to spread rumors, carried out fraud, involved pornography and drugs, and other illegal and criminal acts. Now, with the release of IP territoriality, this kind of IP proxy in Internet applications, including this kind of address modification, is further known.
Challenges and risks that cannot be ignored
It can be seen that, for now, whether it is the release of IP territorial land, or the IP proxy business that has been spawned, it is still immature.
On the one hand, although the IP territorial release is convenient for the accountability of bad information publishers, it can also impose responsibility constraints on netizens, but IP territorial display is only a technical means, and it is impossible to solve the problem once and for all, and even prevent secondary problems. , such as the challenges brought by the IP proxy business , including how to avoid some people who are accustomed to publishing 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 take stronger measures, such as establishing complete and systematic notification procedures and relief procedures, including informing users when to disclose IP territorial, to what extent, and after disclosure. What remedies are available in the event of a problem, etc.
On the other hand, from the perspective of IP proxy business, for individuals, the use of proxy servers still has the risk of personal information leakage. After using a black proxy IP, it is easier for hackers and viruses to enter the host of individual users and obtain personal information. . Once the criminals obtain the personal information, it is likely to be used for cybercriminal activities, which will eventually lead to the loss of people's personal and property safety.
In addition, for the agency industry that modifies 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, and the It may be suspected of the crime of destroying the computer information system; the seller may be involved in the crime of non-illegal business operation if the seller illegally operates the IP agency industry and seriously disrupts the order of market operations.
At the same time, the IP address modification industry also provides great convenience for cybercriminal activities. If the seller clearly knows that others use the network to commit crimes, but also provides them with corresponding technical support, modifying IP addresses and other services, and the circumstances are serious, they may be suspected of helping information network crimes. The Ministry of Public Security announced at the "Net Net 2021" work conference that it will investigate and deal with 146 Internet TV platforms together with relevant departments, and shut down more than 13,000 illegal broadband and more than 5,000 broadband Internet accounts.
For the service of paid IP proxy, at present, some platforms have cleaned up and compressed this gray transaction space by technical means such as blocking keyword searches. It is foreseeable that, in addition to expanding the scope of keyword blocking, the platform may also cut off related transaction channels by increasing the review and punishment of merchants.
Undoubtedly, publishing IP territorial areas is conducive to preventing fraud (such as foreign criminals pretending to be public prosecutors and law enforcement agencies to contact users), and facilitating users to identify false information (such as domestic users disguised as foreigners to make comments) and other needs. It can be said that there are public interest considerations, and there are also Enterprise risk control considerations. However, the release of IP territorial territories will not be achieved in one step. How to implement the release of IP territorial territories and avoid secondary risks may only be the first step.