Is there any value in renting out physical computers to people? Many websites can be frustrating to scrape with their anti-automated-browsing features, so I wondered if this might actually be a viable business model? I suppose one would of course have to be safe and ideally force it to be on a dedicated residential proxy of sorts (to avoid exposing risk to oneself), but is that actually something people would pay for?
Renting Physical Computers
- Thread starter drone6251
- Start date
- Mar 10, 2010
- 42,695
- 107,139
Giving someone access to your computer has huge opportunities for someone to use that for something illegal and you get hit with the bill.
Nothing I would ever do.
The risk reward is all kinds of bent out of shape.
Nothing I would ever do.
The risk reward is all kinds of bent out of shape.
I thought of this because many scraping operations are very difficult when trying to do it from a server, especially ones which check browser authenticity and scan for VPS fingerprints, so I was wondering if the benefit of having a physical fingerprint (real computer, real screen, real everything) might offer value to people doing complex or rigorous scraping operations.
How do server companies deal with the risks imposed by renting their computers? Wouldn't you be mostly liability-free if you require them to sign an agreement assuming responsibility, and you give them a completely fresh computer (none of your details)? Off my head, I'd assume it's much easier to escape punishment if that happened to a big company compared to a small vendor.
- Mar 10, 2010
- 42,695
- 107,139
No idea how they do what they do but I would not allow anyone, and that includes the entire world and others on various planets, to access mine unless I was seeing all they do.
Not worth it as to a revenue stream in my opinon.
Dark Sky
Banned - leaving fake reviews.
- Apr 3, 2019
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I assume they are exempt from legal responsibilities to a degree, providing they can show they have some layers of security in force, and they are not aware of any illegal activities being conducted.
Pretty certain they will have been given solid legal advice on it.
MKSKS
Banned for failing to resolve dispute.
- Jul 11, 2013
- 6,098
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They have guys called server admins to manage everything. If anything happens good or bad these guys get into the system and fix those things. If it's the legal thing then also they are the ones who have the skills to get the data from the system, connection whatever. I am a layman here so I can't do any of those stuff. Now ask yourself are you the one who could handle this. If at all you think you are capable of handling. Check the TOS pages of some of the hosting companies. You could find lots of info from there itself how these companies handle and deal with their business.
Definitely, that makes a lot of sense. I certainly wouldn't want to ever dip my toes into the waters, but I was curious why others hadn't. I suppose at the point your a company large enough to have legal teams and administration to protect yourself from this sort of stuff, renting physical computers for some blackhat stuff doesn't make much sense anymore
Thank you for the great input!That makes a lot of sense. I wasn't sure if someone could just handwave away their responsibilities by making clients accept their TOS, but I assume it just isn't as much of an issue from their armies of lawyers and layers of security. Some companies like Shadowtech were doing something similar by renting gaming PC's, and I had a good experience with it, but it made me think why don't people do that for BHW. I suppose this probably is just about the worst audience to rent to as well if you were a vendor concerned about liabilities