Insecure Proxy Scanning Information Center
You are most likely viewing this page because our network services indicated you have an open proxy or you were akilled for having an "Open Proxy Server." Please read through this document to find out why.
A proxy server is a software program that enables multiple computers to share a single internet connection. A properly functioning and secure proxy server only accepts connections from the local addresses on the local area network that it shares the Internet connection for, and then handles the sending and recieving of requests on the Internet.
An "open" or insecure proxy server will accept any requests from any computer (whether on the local area network it's supposed to be sharing the internet connection for or any computer on the internet) to share the internet connection. This enables any user with sufficient knowlege to use your internet connection for whatever they want if you have an insecure proxy server running.
Many times abusers will use an open proxy to avoid akills, to spam, or for various other purposes. Not only is this a problem for our network, but your open proxy server unwittingly allowed this abuse to occur. This means that they are able to appear on IRC (and any other service that you can use through the internet, they will be able to do so through your proxy using your connection). If they cause abuse, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may be contacted and you may get in trouble for the abuse they caused. This is a bad situation, so it is extremely important to secure your open proxy.
The method to secure an open proxy varies based on the software that you are using. In general, you must configure your proxy server to only allow connections from your local area network IP addresses (obtained from this document):
You must then be sure that the proxy denies requests from all but the preceeding addresses.
The methods of configuring your proxy obviously vary based on the proxy software that you are using. We are unable to provide support for how to configure your proxy. Some common proxy links follow, refer to your proxy's documentation for more information.
Scanning Procedures on chatisus.com / technerd.net
Because of the potential abuse that can be caused by open proxy servers we must scan for these upon connection to our network. This enables us to prevent abuse from happening by dealing with abusive proxy users but also enables us to instruct legitimate users on how to secure their proxies to prevent abuse.
To scan for proxies, we must make non-invasive connections to your computer on TCP ports 1080 (SOCKS), 23 (Telnet),3128 (certain proxy servers), 80 and 8080 (WWW). We are checking for open SOCKS4, SOCKS5, and Wingate proxy servers. Utilities such as NukeNabber or various firewalls may present alerts to you when the scan occurs. These connections are not an attack on your machine but simply the open proxy scanner doing it's job. If you are not comfortable with these scans, please do not connect to any chatisus.com or technerd.net irc servers as you will only be scanned if a client connects to our network from your IP address. irc.technerd.ner and/or chatisus.com does not at any time randomly check user systems or networks for these insecure servers, a user must attempt to establish a connection to a chatisus.com or technerd.net server before the check is initiated.
These scans are allowed by the United States Code, Title 18, Section 2701, Part C.
If you have been akilled from the network because of an insecure proxy, you can contact our staff to ask for your akill to be removed. We do not normally akill proxies unless someone was using it for an abusive intent. Once your akill is removed, you should connect to the network and verify that you are not notifed by the network services regarding an open proxy still.