I've been heavily researching on this topic for past two days to get to the bottom of how "residential proxy" are created. I'd like to give a brief rundown of my finding. Please correct me and fill in knowledge if you can.
The big player, `illuminati,i0` have their own source IPs. They have people using their VPN to which they spread their traffic around it. Basically a peer to peer VPN. They are selling the access points of people using their free VPN as residential proxies.
Another part of the puzzle is companies who don't have a popular VPN. How on earth are they selling residential proxies? Such as `icedoutproxies)`, `yourprivateproxy`, `geosurf., of sellers can be found on Google using the keyword, "residential proxy".
One theory is that they are just reselling `illuminati,` proxies. The reason for this there is common pattern around all these `third party` provider,
1) All are pricey
2) 99& of them are not static (30 mins refresh time)
3) Many hover around 40k residential block IPs
4) Most are mobile network if you trace them AT&T is popular
My theory is that with a ~40k IP pool. they must be sourcing from a common big supplier. And that supplier has access to IPs which other just don't have, peer to peer extremely popular VPN.
Now, other theories are popping up, one of them is these IPs are just part of a b@@tnet. They are literally m@@lware infected into innocent machines from where the traffic is tunneled to. I read this by two people in the forums. Insecure devices connecting to the internet such as smart TV, smart refrigerators, etc. This explanation looks placeable if you think about it.
Another 'legitimate' way is to actually pay ISP to have access to the Ips. Creating a proxy service using a RasberryPie or Intel Compute Stick with bunch of GSM connected. Now you build a set of these, send it off to home owner in your targeted city and pay them few bucks a month to have it connected in their house.
So folks there you have it. My 2cents. I've been reading bunch of forums and post by users but no has really been talking about the source of residential IPs. I did get a "taboo" topics around forums. But I'm glad this is BHW where things get exposed.
To sum it up, there is only two real ways to create residential IPs, 1) buy sim cards + any single board computer 2) do actual m@@@ware and find vulnerable IoT devices to scan and leech.
need to grab some sleep now. This has been in my head for past three days consecutively.