SHODAN is an interesting new search engine that just went up this week. It offers a large database of pre-scanned systems to search from. Today the author released a plug-in for FireFox that puts SHODAN in the drop-down for search engines (see below).
What can you search for? Try looking for SQUID servers and you’ll get about 25,000 results.
Now give NetCache a shot. See what I mean? Pure gold.
You also can search by country, which will definitely please the Cameroonian puppy scammers out there who will not leave me alone about needing UK proxies (guys, I only collect proxies from other lists so you get what you get).
Obviously, this thing has tremendous possibilities.
Today there was a surge of new proxies. I’m not sure where they came from, but I’m betting on the Russian site.
They were heavily South American, mainly Brazil, and a smattering of Central American proxies. Right now I’m set up with a Guatemalan proxy that’s nice & perky.
I doubt if it will last long.
Pages 1-3 (at this point) were all harvested today. There’s eight days worth of proxies on page 4, which just demonstrates how slow it’s been lately. Here’s another indicator:
Traffic to the list is on a serious downhill slide! Are the Cameroonians that pissed about the dearth of UK proxies?
Although press reports of hacking activity are usually poorly informed, this story out of the UK seems to document what happens when someone turns your system into an open proxy:
A couple from Lincolnshire say they are being plagued by computer hackers.
The pair say they are being put through hell by a hacker who has broken through their security.
Now Donna James, 43, and Rachel Burton’s home router is being used as an internet server for an unknown number of people…
Ms James, who is doing a masters degree in design, said: “They’ve basically ripped our lives apart.
“We don’t use our computers for anything out of the ordinary but who knows what the people using us as a server have been doing.”
Even though the word “proxy” is missing entirely from this article, it’s obvious that’s what they’re talking about. I don’t recall ever seeing a story similar to this (even without the obviously lesbian couple).
I lowered the proxy high water mark to 750 from 900 since things have been so slow lately. This means that when the list hits 750+ proxies, they are all checked to make sure they’re still alive.
Last night after the smoke cleared there were only 192 proxies in the entire list!
I haven’t seen it that bad in over a year.
One resurrection run was made and brought the total up to ~350, which is still pretty low, so I ran another one. It’s churning away right now.
So anyway, I’ve been hitting the Top Ten List a lot lately. The Saudi proxy I used for months finally got banned where I used it most, so I had to dig for another. The first one I tried was a Chinese proxy that let me have about three clicks before it barfed out a page in Chinese at me. Then I found another Saudi proxy in the Top Ten, but it was slow as Hell. I finally hit on a Brazilian proxy that has lasted a few days. That has to be a record, for me at least.
I have some official “stuff” coming out next week, so in advance of that I have set myself up with a Facebook (ugh) account. I won’t give you a link but you should be able to find me pretty quick. I have very few friends (just like IRL). Poor me.
