However, we also identified some questionable connections. We saw normal traffic, such as browsing news websites, listening to news streams, or even browsing online shopping websites. Typically, users will share their connection and get credits, which can later be converted into actual money.īut is this true? To examine and understand the kind of risks a potential user might be exposed to by joining such programs, we recorded and analyzed network traffic from a large number of exit nodes of several different network bandwidth sharing services (exit nodes are computers who had these network bandwidth sharing services installed).įrom January to September 2022, we recorded traffic coming from exit nodes of some of these passive income companies and examined the nature of the traffic being funneled through the exit nodes.įirst of all, our observation confirmed that traffic from other app partners are funneled to our exit node and most of it is legitimate.
PACKETSTREAM PROXY SOFTWARE
These companies offer users a way to passively make money online by downloading and running their software agent. Some examples of companies using the “network bandwidth sharing” monetization scheme include HoneyGain, TraffMonitizer, Peer2Profit, PacketStream, and IPRoyal Pawns, among others. The authors of these tutorials often make money through referrals and promote several “passive income” applications in parallel.
PACKETSTREAM PROXY HOW TO
There are many posts in public blogs and YouTube channels teaching people how to make “passive income” with easy step-by-step tutorials. Make easy money online just by sharing unused bandwidth?
The users are exposed to disproportionate risks, since they cannot control the activities performed using their home/mobile IP addresses. This means that the downloaders do not know about the “passive income” apps, and the income actually goes to the developers. We also investigated questionable developers who bundle “passive income” apps with third party libraries. In this investigation, we have studied several prominent “passive income” applications, which turn the computers running them into residential IP proxies, and those proxies are sold to clients to use as “residential IP proxies.” The apps are often promoted via referral programs, with many famous YouTubers and bloggers promoting them. This is because some paying customers of these proxy services may be using them for unethical or even illegal purposes. The operators of this distributed network might monetize it by selling proxy services to their paying customers.Įven though the websites hosting the “passive income” software emphasize legitimate use cases, we have found that such software can pose security risks to the downloaders.
PACKETSTREAM PROXY INSTALL
When users willingly or unwillingly install such software on their computers, the systems become agents of a distributed network. There are many online stories and blog posts teaching people how to make “passive income” by sharing spare computing power and/or unused internet bandwidth.
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