Notices by Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag: (ryanc@infosec.exchange)

@xdej @jwildeboer real time proxy detection

@Viss @Heidi they also persist in warning me about spicy food, or at least I did until I asserted dominance by showing I could handle capsaicin better than them

@Viss @Heidi my coworkers from India also do that

@Viss @Heidi there's a bit more subtlety to it than that...

@jenniferplusplus I have code that hooks the DOM APIs, dumps the source code of anything calling them, and sends it to my server.

https://github.com/ryancdotorg/rya.nc-theme/blob/main/src/js/etc/50-read.js

Addendum: Trend Micro did some research on these companies back in 2023 and it confirms my suspicions. And I guess with AI scraping this kind of business is booming. For the paranoid:

„There are malicious actors who repacked freeware and shareware written by other people to conduct drive-by downloads of the Infatica peer-to-business (P2B) service“

https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/ae/security/news/vulnerabilities-and-exploits/a-closer-exploration-of-residential-proxies-and-captcha-breaking-services

6/8

I already blogged about this at https://jan.wildeboer.net/2025/02/Blocking-Stealthy-Botnets/

I might rewrite that blog post to make the problem clearer. And to explain why I am now of the opinion that *every* form of web-scraping should be considered abusive. If you think your web-scraping is acceptable behaviour, you can thank these shady companies and the "AI" hype for moving you to the bad corner.

TL;DR certain companies recruit app developers to create botnets. Botnets are malware. Period.

The web is broken, IMHO.

5/8

The web is broken, IMHO

So there is a (IMHO) shady market out there that gives app developers on iOS, Android, MacOS and Windows money for including a library that sells users network bandwidth. Infatica [1] is just one example, there are many more.

I am 99% sure that these companies cause what effectively are DDoS attacks that many webmasters have to deal with since months. This business model should simply not exist. Apple, Microsoft and Google should act.

1/5

[1] https://infatica.io/sdk-monetization/

@jwildeboer I am going to build the tech to destroy this business model.

@wdormann ramblings of a mentally ill person

@nano_ @oldladyplays @Exandra it is not symbolic for cis people to wear trans pride swag

@Lana fuck taking the high road

@mallory things we can buy and display in our home

My partner and I are looking for art that celebrates transness and/or queerness, please share recommendations!

@dakkar ...that joke did not even occur to me

I took a photo of some fans, then noticed my testosterone and estrogen gel in the background, lol.

@jul the other problem is that different depth 40mm fans apparently use different screw sizes?

I replaced the fan in one of my Ethernet switches, hoping to reduce the noise. It got louder...

@merospit Yeah, mine is in LaTeX too, lol.

Partner: Can you please check my grocery shopping list?
Partner: shows me overleaf
Me: Looks amazing!

You see, we've bonded over our shared LaTeX fetish...