Technology Reports

Well, My experiment in Proxy servers came to an end a couple of months ago.

For a while I was running a small number (about 20) proxy’s and my host told me to get rid of them -due to abuse.. As I had a lot of other sites on the server I had no choice but to remove them. I held onto a couple of them and continued to earn a small amount from them, but finally they too were the subject of abuse.

The abuse was in the form of someone logging into an email account from the proxy and sending spam. Guess what IP address appeared in the email headers as the originator - yes, the IP of my server.

So, the only choice I had was to shut down the last proxy I had, which was a shame as the actions of a single person denied the use for the hundreds of legitimate users.

What did I learn about this experience? Well, a lot. I learnt that no matter what, there is always someone who will try and take advantage of any given situation. Providing an online service might earn you a bit of $, but the eventual abuse will make it hardly worthwhile. Running a proxy made me a reasonable amount of money, but only for a short time. I would have been better off devoting my time to a project that would have earnt me a lesser amount, but been capable of earning forever!