Why do I need proxies for IG accounts?

[Xorakis]

Hello guys,

before you reply with "To hide your IP address!" hear me out.

I know what a proxy is and what it does, but my question is: shouldn't instagram (or any website) just see my internet service provider or mobile operator gateway's IP? I think it shouldn't be able to recognize me from my IP, because of the NAT used on my ISP internat gateway, right?
There are millions of people that go online with the same IP, therefore there will be so many instagram accounts created with the same IP.
If I create many accounts, IG should not be able to know that I'm the person behind them (unless I verify them with the same phone number).

Is there something I'm missing?

 

[bartosimpsonio]

The part you're missing is that the proxy is outside your isp gateway. IG sees the proxy as the last hop.

 

[zuix33]

you dont need proxies,you need a brain lol

 

[MrChow]

Hello guys,

There are millions of people that go online with the same IP, therefore there will be so many instagram accounts created with the same IP.

Thats where you are wrong

 

[blazingcode]

proxies can be use for dummy accounts

 

[Victory City]

ummm use proxies?

 

[Chris.Roark]

There are millions of people that go online with the same IP, therefore there will be so many instagram accounts created with the same IP.

that my friend... is an Utopia. which unfortunately has nothign to do with the Internet.

 

[Xorakis]

The part you're missing is that the proxy is outside your isp gateway. IG sees the proxy as the last hop.

Thanks for the reply, but I know the proxy is outside of my ISP network. My point is: every account that doesn't use proxies goes online with the same IP, so there are lots of account registered with the same IP and most of them will be common users. IG can not ban or flag every account just because one was spammy, right?

 

[Xorakis]

Thats where you are wrong

that my friend... is an Utopia. which unfortunately has nothign to do with the Internet.

Thanks for the replies, maybe there are not millions of people with the same IP, but at least several thousands.
I mean, I have tried to sniff packets to IG with Wireshark, I see as a source IP my private IP in the 192 168 x x subnet, but since I can not go online with that IP, that IP gets changed by the ISP gateway into a public one. And that happens for every cosumer of my ISP.
With wireshark I can see every packet that I exchange with IG, I can not see above Layer 4 because that's encrypted with TLSv1.2, but that will contain only informations about the session, my IP is at L3.
How can IG link together every account that I create?
Is anything above wrong?

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Thanks for the reply, but I know the proxy is outside of my ISP network. My point is: every account that doesn't use proxies goes online with the same IP, so there are lots of account registered with the same IP and most of them will be common users. IG can not ban or flag every account just because one was spammy, right?

Right. In a home network you could have 5 or 6 legitimate users.

The difference is in the behavior. If you have 6 users posting automated stuff 3X per hour, where their bots check the links and see commercial sites, you get flagged.

Proxies help you undo that major footprint.

 

[Chris.Roark]

How can IG link together every account that I create?

I don't know how they are doing it. BUt they do it the same way as any IP check website does.

In addition, there are footprints collected on every account as well. Such as IG app version, screen size, location, and so on.

 

[Chris.Roark]

The difference is in the behavior. If you have 6 users posting automated stuff 3X per hour, where their bots check the links and see commercial sites, you get flagged.

Proxies help you undo that major footprint.

that's a great way top put it

 

[Xorakis]

The difference is in the behavior. If you have 6 users posting automated stuff 3X per hour, where their bots check the links and see commercial sites, you get flagged.

Yes but I think that even if IG bans those 6 users, one could just create another account and this account would have an IP shared with 6 spammy accounts and at least 1000+ legitimate ones.
Well, you are the expert and I'm the noob but I'm still not convinced, so I want to test something: yesterday I created an account using Tor, I'll leave it untouched for a few days, after that I will start following 40-50 people per day.
Since I assume Tor browser has been abused and exit nodes should be well known to IG, I guess I should get banned really soon. We'll see...

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Yes but I think that even if IG bans those 6 users, one could just create another account and this account would have an IP shared with 6 spammy accounts and at least 1000+ legitimate ones.
Well, you are the expert and I'm the noob but I'm still not convinced, so I want to test something: yesterday I created an account using Tor, I'll leave it untouched for a few days, after that I will start following 40-50 people per day.
Since I assume Tor browser has been abused and exit nodes should be well known to IG, I guess I should get banned really soon. We'll see...

I'm not a big expert on proxies at all, I just know their basic operation and what they look like from the server side.

There are lots of things they use to profile your behavior and IP is just one of them ( a strong one at that ). Browsers, especially smartphones, set lots of footprints. Phones are basically unique, the installed app can access anything on the phone.

Tor is known to them, but it's also legit to use because several countries under repression use Tor to escape their walls. But it should be an interesting experiment. I know Facebook blocks Tor almost immediately.

 

[tshin810]

Every router gets a unique public IP address from ISP, no other user shares the same IP address.
check https://www.whatismyip.com
You're the only one who use that IP address in the world.

 

[Xorakis]

Every router gets a unique public IP address from ISP, no other user shares the same IP address.
check whatismyIP
You're the only one who use that IP address in the world.

No sir, that would be impossible, there are only 4 billions IP addresses in the world, then you subtract class D and E subnets, the number of private addresses, subnet and broadcast addresses. There are more than 7 billions people, there are proxies, routers need more than 1 IP, etc... so we need to share resources.
The ICANN assigned the last IP in 2011!
That means that every new customer of an ISP has to use a shared IP.
Besides, if I look at your link, it states that I'm in a city 50 km away from here, I think everyone in this area with the same ISP share that IP.

 

[Xorakis]

I'm not a big expert on proxies at all, I just know their basic operation and what they look like from the server side.

There are lots of things they use to profile your behavior and IP is just one of them ( a strong one at that ). Browsers, especially smartphones, set lots of footprints. Phones are basically unique, the installed app can access anything on the phone.

Tor is known to them, but it's also legit to use because several countries under repression use Tor to escape their walls. But it should be an interesting experiment. I know Facebook blocks Tor almost immediately.

You're right, IP is not the only method to profile you, but it's the only thing a proxy can change, upper layers are encrypted by end points.
I just went for Tor because it's a free way to hide my IP, just in case I'm wrong, its a test and I don't want to ruin my IP in IG's eyes.

 

[bartosimpsonio]

You're right, IP is not the only method to profile you, but it's the only thing a proxy can change, upper layers are encrypted by end points.
I just went for Tor because it's a free way to hide my IP, just in case I'm wrong, its a test and I don't want to ruin my IP in IG's eyes.

Look at cloudflare, it is a proxy and it changes stuff in SSL. If you have a root authority like they do your proxy can change anything.

 

[CenterCB]

If you only use your own ig account, definitely no need to use a proxy
Proxies are for marketers, who need more accounts and keep them separate

 

[JPRock]

Well glad I read the thread answered a few questions I had. Big thanks to @CenterCB for explaining the need or not need a proxie question so good and thanks to @bartosimpsonio for mentioning cloudfare for when I will need a proxie