Explanation: Proxies, HitBots and Cheating - facts and limitations

[XXXManager]

An question, some of you might have had as well.

Originally posted by eru
What's a proxy server?

So what is a proxy? and what is it's relation with cheating and hitbotting?

A server that proxy HTTP (and sometimes other type of) requests.
A proxy server serves as a buffer between you, and the site which you request data from.
So if you are viewing a page on GFY through a proxy, your computer will ask the proxy for the GFY page, the proxy will ask GFY for the page, store/cache it, and send it to you (and in return your browser will continue and ask the proxy for all the images etc...). You basically set the proxy IP/URL in your browser connection setup.
The basic idea of a proxy is to serve as a buffer and cache for corporate or sub-nets but people today also use proxies for anonymity means.
A non-anonymous proxy will send the original request parameters but most public free proxies used today are hiding your IP and give their own, so that the site (GFY for example) don't know who really requested the page.

HitBots use lists of proxies to hide their unique IP and pretend to be many many different (proxy) IPs, when cheating a trader and pretending to send many different visitors (which are actually unreal) his way.

The thing is, that a bot in that case will use a too high ratio of proxy IPs - which is not typical for natural internet traffic (which has low proxy percentage).
Also - Cheaters have to supply a proxy list for the bot. Such lists are available online for free. BUT a Trading script owner (or trade service provider) can bet the same lists - so cheaters can't really have proxy lists that you don't know of.