How to block VPNs/Proxies from using my service?

Shigawire

I offer a freemium service to my clients. To make sure that nobody is abusing the "free" part I added mobile phone verification.

But I also want to make everything as smooth as possible to administrate - ban tor, well known VPN providers, proxies etc from accessing my site.

I would use the nginx geoIp module, but how do I get a list of constantly updated IPs?
Are there any services that would provide this? It doesn't have to be free.

Thanks

0xdragon

Maxmind

TheLinuxBug

Fraudrecord

Cheers!

Shamli

http://www.blocked.com/

chrisp

@Shamli said:
http://www.blocked.com/

omg

" www.blocked.com is protected by Blocked.com.
Your request was blocked because you appear to be accessing this website from a hosting provider network, proxy server, or VPN server."

I am just using one of my vpses. If I would get such message I would just leave a service (my ip is unshared)

Shamli

sure you'll get that...since you are not using residential ip....but DC ip...this will surely block those undetected proxies or vpns....

Komplanar

` www.blocked.com is protected by Blocked.com.

Blocked is security software which protects websites and empowers webmasters to stop unwanted traffic.

Your request was blocked because you appear to be accessing this website from a hosting provider network, proxy server, or VPN server. `

nice, so they block me since I have to use an ipv4 NAT. But maybe they block me because of the non-existing geo-record of my ip. But thats no adequate reason to exclude visitors and potential customers.

If some provider uses blocked.com, they'll be put to my blocked-list.

Starry

I visit www.blocked.com using my home adsl and get blocked...

fitvpn

@Shigawire - Probably you will stay alone

Shigawire

Thank you all for your input

I just saw their pricing - 12k for their raw feed is hefty.
Protecting one domain for 500€ one time payment (this seems ok on longer terms)
The free version is kind of useless.
And they really seem to trigger quite quickly. Not sure if this is what I want

I will check MM and Fraudrecords now

fitvpn

Folks with paranoid syndrome pay twice..

Shigawire

This has nothing to do with being parandoid.
It just already happened that people from a certain country abused my service, grabbed VPNs and VOIP phones and got a lot of free services.

This degraded service quality for all other users.
I just dont want to happen this again.

I want to make sure the right people get access and the wrong stay out.
The same reason why you providers use maxmind.

fitvpn

If you provide freebies and not satisfied with peoples coming to you from certain countries why just not close your freemium racism? Which reason you need know their data, for what? Looking for guest or say hello on phone call? If folks use VPN or proxy etc, is mean they don't want to be tracked by someone, its normal, privacy not a crime.

Komplanar

Maybe you can try this site, it protects me against 100% of frauds and unwanted users. ;-)

https://iprating.byte.so/

Mark_R

@fitvpn said:
If you provide freebies and not satisfied with peoples coming to you from certain countries why just not close your freemium racism? Which reason you need know their data, for what? Looking for guest or say hello on phone call? If folks use VPN or proxy etc, is mean they don't want to be tracked by someone, its normal, privacy not a crime.

This privacy could be abused by people causing @shigawire trouble.

elwebmaster

Short answer: "You can't." The problem you have is not with users trying to protect their privacy, but with abusers. That's why you can't fix the problem by using these services listed here. If somebody really wants to abuse your service, they will find a way.
You can't possibly find all the world's data center IPs, the abuser will always be able to find one before you do, it's a cat and mouse game. This is the same game recording/movie industries play with pirates, they shut down one tracker and two new ones are ready to replace it.

Your problem is in the fundamentals. Why are you offering an unsustainable service?
"This degraded service quality for all other users."
That's the real problem. You are offering service at price point ($0) at which the demand greatly outweighs your capability to supply the service. Your model is flawed.

What I suggest you do is to offer a smaller "trial" pack of whatever you are offering, something that allows the user to try the service without investing too much, yet is high enough to be sustainable proportional to your "premium" offering. For example you can charge $0.50 for 10 minutes, or whatever the equivalent is in your service terms. For most customers $0.50 is worth nothing, they won't care if they lose this much money, yet for you it hopefully allows you to provide the service in a sustainable manner. Such that if 100000000 ppl sign up for this trial it won't degrade your service but will make you a millionaire. That's the basics of business my friend.

Shigawire

@fitvpn said:
If you provide freebies and not satisfied with peoples coming to you from certain countries why just not close your freemium racism? Which reason you need know their data, for what? Looking for guest or say hello on phone call? If folks use VPN or proxy etc, is mean they don't want to be tracked by someone, its normal, privacy not a crime.

Pft.

I am providing free gameservers for http://mtasa.com
These servers require next to no resources, most time idling around.
I implemented a cloud provider's API for auto-deployment to our system. These plans do not cost me much, especially when the clients can buy additional features like more player slots or removing our tag from the server's name.
But it happened in the past that some 14 year old kids from the middle east came, used VPNs and acquired dozens of gameservers.
Then spamming the support dpt. with useless emails containing only stuff like "Why?" (actual email content) when removing them from our system.

Our TOS clearly state that it is not allowed to have more than one free server per person.
Additionally, they violated our TOS in multiple ways, but that should not be of interest here.

"is mean they don't want to be tracked by someone, its normal, privacy not a crime."

Not it is not. But then again I will not put any effort into providing those people free services.

I am literally giving away my money, because I love this game and its addon and I know there are many young gamers who cannot pay for/afford a gameserver.

To provide this to as many people as possible I need to make sure that everything is fair.

I do not plan to exclude a whole country, but I want to make sure everyone gets the same chance. That's all.

@elwebmaster said:
What I suggest you do is to offer a smaller "trial" pack of whatever you are offering, something that allows the user to try the service without investing too much, yet is high enough to be sustainable proportional to your "premium" offering. For example you can charge $0.50 for 10 minutes, or whatever the equivalent is in your service terms. For most customers $0.50 is worth nothing, they won't care if they lose this much money, yet for you it hopefully allows you to provide the service in a sustainable manner. Such that if 100000000 ppl sign up for this trial it won't degrade your service but will make you a millionaire. That's the basics of business my friend.

Tried the trial thing already.
As said above, many players just do not have the possibility to buy this service. Even when they wanted to.
Then giving away free servers to those and still asking others to pay doesn't seem fair either.

I will implement MaxMind and try it for a week.