Is there anything like a known proxy server IP list/database?

Question

I'm looking for something like a known proxy servers IP list (text, comma seperated or database based). Do you happen to know if anything like that exists? Free would be nice. I doubt it because these things change every day, but as various websites contain big lists of available proxy servers I think it could be a possiblity. I know for example that MaxMind uses something like that for their fraud checking, but I'm not sure if they compare the IP against a database or use HTTP headers instead. I'm trying to do the former. Any info would be helpful, thanks.

Answer 1

In terms of building a free list of proxy servers, there is a tool called Charon that uses Google to search for proxy lists and then verifies them. YAPH is a commonly used tool for finding proxies.

If you are trying to detect if someone is using a proxy, the x-forwarded-for won't work with "anonymous proxies", however you could test each new ip address with YAPH to see if they are running a proxy server on a common port. Of course if they are using a proxy server on a strange port this method won't work.

In terms of "real security" I think this is complete and total waste of time. IP addresses are basically free, and its trivial to bypass IP based blocking/delays for brute force protection. The counter argument is that IP based blocking is better than nothing, and I suppose thats true just don't depend on it.

Answer 2

I don't know something exactly as you want, I think that it doesn't exists.

But as you said, there are sites that publish fresh proxy IP lists every day, you can collect IP addresses and ports from there and generate yourself your database. You can do even more, but this could be a good start.