Proxy Moxie

Let us begin by explaining something really clearly for those of you new to this. Every proxy server has an ip. But.. not every ip has a proxy server. You need fresh IP’s to flag, the more the better. And using a proxy is one way to remotely (from home) accomplish that. A proxy, is a computer which has proxy software installed into it, creating a server out of it. This server allows your http (internet) requests to go through it if you have the IP, port, user name, and password that are set up from within your proxy program. Some proxy servers are set up as “open proxies” and they have no username or password. These might work for flagging, but not for posting. You will be softblocked. Some proxy servers are “Web Proxies” and are OK to post on Kijiji, but not good with Craigslist. The definition of the word “Proxy” means to go through.

If you are unsure of your ip address, or the information a server can get from your ip address, you can use our ip tools to discover what information you’re sending out. If you have the IP address of someone who is doing something they shouldn’t, you can also use that site to trace their location. You might also use this to check to see that your proxy manager is working correctly when you are using a proxy. Our ip tools use the Maxmind paid subscription to look up IP’s, it is one of the few that does. Most of the other similar sites on the net use an old out dated database. Craigslist also uses Maxmind geolocation services to determine how far away you are from the site where you are trying to post.

**note: We have no time to set up squid proxy servers, or tweak windows systems etc, so please don’t ask us. There is sufficient documentation for this everywhere online. We don’t want to bury our important information with text books found anywhere. This is a place for learning our secrets, not the ABC’s of basic computing. Some people complain there is too much information in here, and they get lost. Some complain there is not enough. If we leave out a topic, its deliberate, because its common knowledge. If you don’t possess this knowledge, we gave you a context and concept, with enough keywords to pursue the common knowledge on your own. We are not leaving you up a tree, but we are not going to hold your hand and take midnight anguished Craigslister phone calls.

Craigslist flaggers Next, we need to help you understand a little about ip addresses. This will help you determine if you are in the game, or just being played by both sides, (proxy resellers, and Craigslist). Your ip is made of 4 groups of 3 numbers. They are called octets. If you want to be seen as a different user on CL, you can not come from the same subnet. If you use a service like Hide My Ass (HMA), and they keep changing IP’s in the last octet only, you’re on the same subnet, and you will be ignored after 4 flags. Not only that, there may be other Craigslisters using the same IP. With 20 billion page views per month on Craigslist, this is quite likely, in fact, almost a certainty. You need to change the last TWO sets of numbers now, that’s why the rebooting your cable modem trick no longer works. Too many people caught on, and they had to be more specific.

However, if your using any service for IP’s its most likely you are experiencing a softblock. A softblock will not count your flags, and it will only allow you to generate weak ads that come down with just a few flags. Soft blocked accounts are linked to the blocked IP’s, and account emails. If you go to a fresh unblocked IP with bad cookies in your browser, and / or log into a blown account, your fresh IP will now be softblocked instantly!

Have you ever noticed Craigslist hesitates when its about to ask you to re verify your account, or when an ad is about to come down? Or when you log into an old account on a new ip? That’s because it is writing a new sql (rule) on their server. It’s the same idea when Neo sees the black cat twice in the Matrix, when you notice a perceptual glitch, they have changed something.. If you use an old abused account on a new ip, or old cookies on a new account, their server marks your current IP, your account as softblocked. You will have nothing but intermittent problems from then on with your IP, and your ads. Your ability to flag will also be lost. Likely the softblock on the IP will reset after one month, but the account is forever tainted. They use this tactic quite often, their rules expire. So, they get double use out of each rule, it changes things, then changes them back to keep you guessing.

This is a sophisticated system. If it was so very easy that everybody could have their way with it, CL would be a blank page. As the masses get more educated, Craigslist is forced to adapt to combat the spam. Your cookies always need to be cleared before you login to a different account. Or all the bad aspects of each account cross-pollinate each other and you wind up chasing your tail. Softblock is specifically engineered to keep you guessing, give you intermittent results, and frustrate you. You made a mistake, you used the a different account on the wrong IP, you logged in with old cookies in your browser, etc.

When your posts are coming down, just trash that account, don’t play their game, today it works, tomorrow your gone.. it is designed to get rid of you and drive you mad. New IP, clear cookies, new email, new account, new titles. If you think your phone number is banned.. Make a picture of your contact details, and post it without a link.

What can Craigslist see?

You first need to realize what Craigslist sees when you show up on their website. Craigslist cannot see your mac address, but your ISP can. If your paranoid, or doing illegal things, the ISP with a court order can trace you back to your adapters mac address if it is not spoofed, and convict if your in possession of it.

If you type in show my headers into google, there are some sites that will show you what your putting forward in your header information when you show up on a website or use our ip tools. Craigslist bans ALL known proxies and strange referrers. If a proxy is detected, it is banned, IP is banned, account is softblocked.. so now you can start over. Some proxies will proudly announce they are a proxy in the header information that is sent to their servers, and that’s it, the party’s over. Also, you cannot use TOR with Craigslist, it announces you’re on a proxy. You can use 🦊 Firefox 42 64-bit or Firefox 42 32-bit with HMA successfully, until someone abuses one of their IP’s and gets it banned that is. See how fast you can blow an IP for everyone? HMA is just a little less effective now because one person got caught misusing Craigslist with their IP address, and now you will be softblocked along with everyone else using that particular IP for about a month. All associated accounts with the shared and now softblocked IP then become softblocked too as the ban migrates to everyone’s account who has used that ip address recently. Your account ban is permanent, but their ban on the IP address is for about one month, then it resets. Many proxy services are here today, and gone tomorrow, and we really can’t recommend any other than HMA. If this does not fulfill your specific needs, you will need a VPS.

If we recommended a perfect proxy service today, just one person could make mistakes while learning, and blow all the IP’s in one day for everyone. Craigslist has decided if you know anything of proxies, you are an attacker, and they will stop you at the gate. If HMA works one day and not the next, you now know why, someone using it as well on Craigslist got the IP banned. The proxy server will work until someone pushed the wrong thing, spammed, opened an abused account etc, while learning Craigslist, and that’s it. You need to halt right here, and learn these tutorials before you mess up your IP’s and or accounts, and everyone else’s. Chances are, you already have.. yes you . They catch you while your learning to defeat them with your IP’s, proxies, different browsers and headers, and they try to drive you crazy with a softblocked account, and make it look like your competitors knocked you out. But its their automated spam-bot rules changing as you misuse their website, and you did this all to yourself, softblocked your own account trying to learn by bumping into all the walls along the way. But they are expecting this tactic, so their maze changes as you learn, like a video game, it gets harder and harder and more and more frustrating until you give up and blame your invisible competitors for flagging you off the site.

Keep re-reading our tutorial and beginning all over again until you get every rule and point out of it, and you will be back in the game. Firefox is fine to use, but there are a couple of other options if you want to change your “user agent”. We change it for you with a configuration file. You can learn how to edit this file on the Firefox Tweaks page. Also, our proxy software FoxyRevolver revolves your IP’s based on a timer and saves all the account details etc.. and it also allows you to change your user agent in your headers. In our experience, user agent changing is not necessary, but don’t use a TOR browser ever for anything to do with Craigslist. You never get the same ip twice.. it’s useless, your account will get softblocked, and your flags wont count.

Just as in life, Craigslist can be like an old 1980’s video game sometimes. There is no way you can actually win the game, it just keeps getting harder and harder until you die.

Wardriving

Some of you say, OK, what’s step one? That depends. Are you serious, or do you like to experiment from home only? The serious problem solver and professional will wardrive to determine exactly what they need to take down an ad, or group of them. Then they will go back to the office and go about acquiring the number of IP’s they need in various ways, VPS, experimentation, parabolic dish, balloon with WiFi antenna etc.

Not all of you will want to go to such lengths to acquire your proxies. Some will go to HMA and find all the success they need right there from their easy chair. Great! Not all targets are that easy, some require more persuasion. Each ad is different, they each have a different threshold depending on a number of variables you might not be aware of, remember that. Some people will find it perfectly suitable to wardrive and stop for coffee at every Starbucks on their way to the office and flag there. Some will use a WiFi usb adapter connected to a usb extension cable hanging off the rear-view mirror of their vehicle, and just stop outside the Starbucks instead, flag everything 4 times and go to the next one. Some will have a route stretched across the city and park outside of apartment blocks popping open access points and jumping through the open ones.

Wardriving is the perfect way to baseline your needs. It is the single most reliable method to bring down ads. If you are looking into getting a VPS, etc, wardrive first, and discover exactly how any IP’s you need to bring down your targets, you will know your needs before you start spending money and time setting up the VPS. Possibly with your targets, (realtors listen) the only reliable way to bring down all your targets is to wardrive because you’re up against seasoned pros who change their accounts often and post correctly. Maybe you don’t need to get a VPS if you have a little technical expertise and an old satellite dish. What if you could wardrive from home? What if your usb WiFi stick could pick up dozens of signals for miles? What if you could jump onto an access point from up to 14 miles away and rebroadcast their signal wirelessly to all of your home WiFi network? We would like to introduce you to some simple yet very powerful techniques and some amazing hardware you probably never knew about in our Wardriving section.

Hacking

There is a network testing & penetration tool called Kali Linux. If you want to open all the locked routers you can see in your wireless network connection window to save yourself hours of driving and hundreds in gas, here is what you can do. Use Craigslist for what its meant for. Advertise in jobs for a software guru who knows the ins and outs of Kali Linux, have him come to your home and pay him to teach you how to use the latest version. This is the best way to learn this, you will find a student or an old hacker looking for a few bucks. By the time you both crack all the signals in your area open, you will know how its done, you will have the software working, and you will be able to bust through all the new access points yourself and you will not need to hire anyone again. Again, tell him NOTHING about why you’re doing what you’re doing. If your a go getter and a do it yourselfer, here is an excellent source of wardriving software for free. War-driving

If all this learning and Kali Linux just isn’t your style, but you still want to wardrive, here is a link to compatible adapters.. If there is a will there is a way. Don’t let the police see you with this device in your car. We have a 50$ one, we only go into the open access points and it works just fine to clear entire sections repeatedly 😉

Scanning for Proxies Neo Style

You can run different scanners for open proxies. Why would you find all kinds of open proxies unlocked for you to just walk into? Here is what happens: someone steals some software, or downloads a free porn zip file, or downloads those online movie streaming codex they tell you that you need to watch the video, and there you go, your infected with an open proxy server.

These machines are infected with a small proxy server with a pre-configured port that will report back to the persons who created such a thing. Now, when these persons want to use the 25,000 proxy servers they have access to (all the infected machines), they activate a master proxy manager, and turn on the hose! They can direct all 25,000 computers to visit one target at the same time, and make hundreds of thousands of requests per second. So, that’s why there are so very many open proxy servers you can access with no password.

Back to scanning for open proxies in your area.. You can do the same thing, on a smaller scale and use it to your advantage on Craigslist without hurting anyone, or stealing their information. You would use a proxy scanner like this. If the download is not there, here is our mirror. It’s freeware, don’t worry about the license, but do read the warning inside the file before you even turn it on! If you accidentally scan the pentagon, you might end up in Cuba, and not on vacation. This software is not for everyone, neither is this method. But it does bear mentioning. We told you we were going to reveal just how people were doing things on Craigslist, and this is some of what’s going on.

Craigslist is geo-ip-specific within 50 miles. The computer you’re on, or the proxy your using must be within 50 miles of the location you are trying to interact with on Craigslist. You can’t just log on from different cities, and you can’t flag or post from them either. You don’t want to end up with just any old proxy server though.. how do you target your city IP addresses? Well, you can see the different ip ranges that visit your ads in your city where you are advertising on Craigslist. This is an excellent start. It’s the most current ip list with absolutely no mistakes. Use an ad tracking software pixel and post it in a section that allows html, or even on yesbackpage.de. You can then begin your scans at these ip ranges to find free open proxies in your geo-ip-specific area. If you get enough of these open proxies, you will never have to pay for any, and you can do everything from any of your computers, likely your old XP laptop so you can manage your new “botnet” from your own mobile computer.

What we described is possible, but it might have consequences. It is illegal to some degree, but if you’re not hurting anyone, or trying to break into their computers, you are last on the never ending list of people doing illegal things in America. We don’t recommend doing illegal things. But we do recommend you know all about them so you understand all the risks and activities your involved in for each different proxy acquisition method.

VPS Proxy Servers

CraigsPoster Pro is an ad renewing software only. That’s what it does, that’s all it is marketed for and that’s all it is sold as. There is a special way it handles up to ten accounts, so it does not require any proxies to renew.

CraigsPoster Pro was designed from the ground up to not require proxies, it is the ONLY way to re-post in multiple cities from multiple accounts without ever being ghosted. Don’t be logged into a Craigslist account in the same browser while you’re flagging. So if CraigsPoster Pro is running, and its logged in, using Firefox is just fine, because CraigsPoster Pro is actually using, and depends upon, Internet Explorer.

Read through this short E-book if you would like to learn to do it all yourself. The alternative method is to read this booklet, understand what is required, and call a company and explain that you want them to set up a VPS for you. A VPN is more expensive, and unnecessary, do not get this. Additional IP’s should be about 1.50 to 2$. Alternatively, check out https://www.us-proxy.org/ . FoxyRevolver has an auto switching method that switches automatically after so many seconds or minutes. This way, when the flag forever function is engaged, you can just keep flagging and auto-switching until you get to the end of your ip list, and repeat endlessly.

FoxyRevolver

FoxyRevolver is our modified FoxyProxy project. You can install this into any operating system, as long as you have 🦊 Firefox 42 64-bit or Firefox 42 32-bit. We created this proxy manager specifically for our flaggers.

What if you could automatically rotate your proxies, every 120 seconds, 10 minutes, 1 hour automatically?

The main difference we added is, we have built in a timer to automatically revolve the proxies at what ever interval you set. We created this as a partner to all of our flagging programs. If you buy CraigsFlagger Pro, and CraigsPoster Pro, it comes free.

So in theory, you can get a bulk deal of 70 IP’s and a VPS running squid proxy software on ubuntu server, all day long, removing ads, cleaning out entire sections, and patrolling for your specific keywords, such as a bad competitors phone number. All day it patrols, as soon as they post, CraigsFlagger Pro starts to hammer on their ads as FoxyRevolver switches IP’s every 120 seconds (or what ever you set it to), and your VPS keeps reloading your guns cycling the IP’s you programed into it endlessly.

This is the ultimate system for controlling Craigslist in its current form. Expect to spend about $60 -$100 per month for the VPS and $60 -$100 to have a freelancer set it all up for you. When you set up squid, you want a “transparent” Squid proxy.

With a transparent configuration, It forwards your browser request information through, but changes IP address info. Reverse DNS on the IP addresses should also be responsive, even if it doesn’t look like Shaw or AT&T (et cetera) simply responding adds credibility.
Although an extremely concerned host might detect a proxy, Craigslist wont. While being anonymous behind a proxy is easy — hiding the existence of a proxy is very difficult to a scrupulous web developer.

e.g. The connection type from a squid proxy is HTTP 1.0 which is deprecated for HTTP 1.1. This means someone who is really trying to determine if you are a proxy has some means to believe so. http://wiki.squid-cache.org/Features/HTTP11 provides a spreadsheet listing nearly 700 compliancy tests for Squid proxies HTTP 1.1 support. Version 3.1.10 is only 70% compliant. The development of Squid proxy is slowly approaching 1.1 compliancy, but even the latest versions are only 80%+ complete. A way around this is to use an HTTP 1.0 browser which provides sufficient reason for the older HTTP request type. Changing the User-Agent string on your browser, e.g .Lynx, would help, but be detected by our so-called scrupulous developer. http://useragentstring.com/ At this moment, Craigslist is not going to be able to follow you down the rabbit hole this far. In the future, when squid has a 100% HTTP 1.1 compliant version released, you will want to change in advance of Craigslist enhancing their proxy detection systems.

If you want to know how we flag ads, this is it. We have a VPS with squid proxy server installed in each city we want to flag or advertise in. We load all of our proxies into this software, and open each group of targets in a separate browser tab. We set this software to revolve the proxy every few minutes, allowing for the flagging to occur 4 times at least for each target, and click flag forever as the FoxyRevolver revolves our proxies and loads our flagging gun with fresh rounds. Add open, manual proxies, or password protected proxies. Almost any kind of proxy will work with this software.

If our customers buy CraigsFlagger Pro, and CraigsPoster Pro, we are going to include FoxyRevolver for free in our Trinity Bundle because its so handy. If you are a CraigsPoster Pro customer, or CraigsFlagger Pro customer only, and you would like to upgrade to the bundle deal any time, just purchase the other software and email us at support, and we will add FoxyRevolver for free any time. You can get FoxyRevolver for $24.99 here. You can review the Quick guide for FoxyRevolver here.

Online Elite Proxy servers

Here are a couple of options to consider:

If you are looking for a cheap way to acquire free proxies, you might have limited success with different free alternatives.
http://www.aliveproxy.com/us-proxy-list/

http://www.proxz.com/

Elite Proxy servers and VPS paid services

HideMyAss.com

HMA has been around for quite a while. On their website, they say very specifically, this is not for Craigslist. That said, we have many reports that when used carefully, yes, they do work with Craigslist, for posting, and for flagging. This is not the case with every city, and remember, there are other Craigslisters buying their service and abusing the IP’s until they are banned as well. This is why they say, not to use it with Craigslist. They are not going to guarantee anything, and they cannot warrantee the Craigslist database from changing every second. But they do keep cycling the IP’s, creating new ones all the time. Keep in mind, if you try it or buy it, they told you up front, don’t use this for Craigslist. Don’t stiff them if the IP stops working eventually. Just get a different one, or wait a bit. So, what’s our recommendation? You need to make up your own mind. Most of our clients try this service, and many report that they are indeed successfully using this service, but not all. Yes these IP’s are compatible with FoxyRevolver

If you are going to load these IP addresses and Port numbers into the Foxy Proxy addon – (Options >>Add New Proxy >>Proxy Details) is where this is done. If you prefer something more aggressive that rotates the proxies for you by a variety of settings, use FoxyRevolver.

Proxify is a company that has been around since 2003. The difference here, is they have way more proxy servers, and far less clients. So the chances of finding good IP’s to flag from, or post from are far better. They are a little more expensive, but if they are giving you the perfect IP’s you need, then a little extra doesn’t really matter to most people. We recommend VPS as a permanent stable solution. But for those people who want to try something already setup that you can use from home, the HMA VPN service is the only one we recommend. That doesn’t mean there are not more out there. Experiment all you like, but read our Honey Pot section below before you do.

Proxy Resellers

If you’re thinking,” I’m not that serious but I still need a ghosting / flagging solution on a small scale for a few dollars per month only. ” Here are some tips for you.

~ Make sure it is 100% anonymous – The most commonly used sales tactics by proxy middlemen is claiming how anonymous their proxies are. However, you will find cases where this isn’t exactly true. The best way to find out if they are lying or not is by visiting our ip tools and seeing what is displayed. If it shows that reveals that you are using a proxy, it won’t work for Craigslist. Our ip tools also helps you check what headers the proxy is sending to websites.

~ FAST – Many proxies online are terribly slow. So slow in fact that it would take years to do what you need. Ping the IP’s of your proxy provider to see what kind of connection speed you have. Don’t bother with anything higher than 400ms ping speeds.

After you buy / acquire your new proxy, just install Foxy Revolver, load up the ip and port of their proxy, and give it a test.

If you do plan on getting serious with this I suggest you invest in some proxies or a VPS that you have to pay monthly for. They work better and you will not have to deal with slow connections or bad proxies or sharing with hundreds of thousands of others. Here is an affordable website for that.

Honeypots Our Warnings about free open proxies

The Easy way to Find Open proxies

There’s no need to port-scan huge blocks of IP addresses looking for open proxy servers. Lists of open proxy servers can be found in seconds with a simple Google search. These lists are frequently updated, and some even include bandwidth statistics about each server. However, it should be noted that most of these proxy servers are not supposed to be public. It is very common to for a novice administrator to set up a proxy or HTTP cache with access rights from anywhere. There are programs available on the Internet to automatically redirect your traffic through different proxies. Some of these programs even chain proxies together for additional protection.

The Method

For the standard HTTP request, it is as easy as telnetting to the proxy on the designated port and entering a request like “GET http://www.yahoo.com/ HTTP/1.0” and hitting enter twice. If the proxy is mis-configured, it will return the page from Yahoo. This means the proxy is ripe for abuse. When a proxy abuser finds a fresh proxy to use, the first step is to test the proxy for its anonymity value. Some proxies pass the IP address of the requesting host in the HTTP headers, something that would be detrimental to illegitimate activities. For a computer criminal, the ideal proxy will pass zero information about the real host, and will effectively make it look as though the proxy is the true attack source. Testing this is easy; there are several sites that will show you the complete headers of your HTTP request. Some even score the anonymity of the proxy for you.

This is how easily you can be set up

To learn more about what kinds of activities are happening on the vast network of open proxy servers, some people or organizations set up their own “open” proxy server. Basically, they use a normal Ghost Busters Proxy Server and modify it for spying purposes, using regular expressions and the logic below:

Log all request URLs and complete headers.
If a request is bound for a URL that looks like a proxy test, let it pass.
If a request includes HTTP authentication headers, return a “404 denied”.
If a request is of method type “HEAD”, return a “200 Ok” message
If a request is of method type “CONNECT”, return a “404 Denied” message
If a request looks like an image, return a 1×1 transparent gif
All other requests, return a blank HTML page.

This allows them to spy on the activity passing through their “honeyproxy”, while not actually allowing attacks through to their destinations.

Exposures

Ironically, the very tool the proxy user is using to make themselves more anonymous actually exposes their activity entirely when a honeyproxy is involved. The exploiter has left themselves open to exploitation. Below are some theoretical examples which we don’t recommend trying.

You can collect details from other Craigslisters quite easily with this method. If you put Pittsburgh ip addresses online, it’s likely you will find local business trying to use those IP’s to access Craigslist. You can see what pages they are visiting, and look over their ads once you realize who they are. You would have their ip, and everything in their ads.
A spammer using your proxy to send bulk email. You could collect the content of the spam and report the spammer to his ISP. Spammers who utilize proxy servers often are connecting from a broadband connection, which they really do not want to lose. They have graduated from the school of spammers who use throwaway dialup accounts, since there is far more work involved in obtaining new ISP accounts all the time. Remember, spammers are lazy, so take advantage of this. Of course, there is always the chance that the spammer is chaining proxies together, so you would want to use caution when sending your complaints.
An IRC user bouncing through your proxy. You could allow the person to connect, and then log all the traffic sent and received. This could give a security researcher access to private underground IRC channels which they may never have had access to without years of undercover work. Of course, the legality of this is a gray area, so only proceed with full knowledge of the laws involved.

In conclusion

The above is a somewhat revealing look into the Internet Proxy underground. There seems to be no end to the schemes that will be thought up to abuse proxies, and there is no end Ghost Busters to the list of misconfigured proxy servers. We caution you very strongly about your use of these types of proxies, because anyone can set up a honeyproxy and extract information from this underground information stream. With that said, having a sterile machine for Craigslisting is always a good idea if you’re going to be using proxy servers. It doesn’t matter who owns them, all your access is exposed, unless you it is a VPS (recommended) of your very own.

What do we use to fool Craigslist? We use a combination of everything, and every method. Some targets are difficult, and we wardrive. Some are easy, and we use our VPS or access points from our modified dish. We begin by using both the HMA service, then our VPS has our posting clean proxies which we cal also use to flag, and also our Ubiquity scanner, then wardrive if we must, to finish off any tough ones who are left.

There are online tools that have a list of recently checked online open proxies. You can click the little icon on the left if you have Foxy Revolver installed, and any proxy you click on will immediately be added to your list, and it will test it on the spot. There are a few nice things about these online tools, their proxies show you what city they are in. Also, if you have proxies from any other provider, they will verify that they work, and tell you what city they are in. It doesn’t matter if they are honey pots, as long as you only use them to flag, then switch or shut them off.

Play nice y’all!