Open Proxy Servers Kevin Guthrie ALA, January 2003

JSTOR – January Outline Background: what are “open proxies”? What’s the exposure? What happened? How was it done? Not an isolated case What to do

JSTOR – January What has been taken: 51,392 Articles from 11 Titles # of articlesPct. of Run Sociology Journal 1 4,99795% Sociology Journal 2 11,34087% Economics Journal 3 5,51477% Sociology Journal % Economics Journal % Sociology Journal 5 14,53765% Economics Journal 3 3,61955% Statistics Journal 1 6,55544% Economics Journal % Sociology Journal 6 3,72823% Economics Journal 4 231<1%

JSTOR – January Proxy Servers A proxy server is a web server that acts as an intermediary or relay station between a workstation user and the Internet.

proxy.inst.edu IP: User IP:

JSTOR – January Proxy Servers Common Reasons for Their Use Caching Remote access Usage tracking Controlled access Approved filtering

JSTOR – January What is an “open” proxy server? There is a configuration process to specify who is authorized to access the server. It is similar to the configuration process for any web server When a proxy server is not set up with the appropriate access controls, anyone can access that machine and “assume its identity”

JSTOR – January “Open” Proxy Servers: How and Why are they Created Some are organizational or departmental proxy servers incorrectly configured. Some are set up intentionally to provide access to restricted resources (probably for convenience). We believe many are set up accidentally as an unknown by-product of setting up a web server.

What’s the Exposure?

Search For Lists of Open Proxy Servers

Find Lists of Open Proxy Servers

Lists of Open Proxy Servers by Domain Type

A List of Open.edu Proxies [The server hostnames have been edited to protect the institutions with open proxy servers listed on this page.]

What Happened and How it was Discovered

JSTOR – January JSTOR Monitors Use We have triggers to alert us to unusual levels of usage activity We investigate when usage seems unusual

JSTOR – January The Abuse What Happened August 22 nd to the 27 th articles are downloaded from Proxy #1. August 27 th we deny this IP access to JSTOR August 26 th to September 4 th articles are downloaded from Proxy #2 at a different participating site. September 4 th we deny the IP address of this second proxy.

JSTOR – January The Abuse What Happened It appeared the two abuse situations were related: 1.There was an overlap in journals downloaded, but not an overlap in articles downloaded. 2.Analysis of our log files showed that the URLs being downloaded via Proxy #2 were created through use at Proxy #1.

JSTOR – January The Abuse The Pattern Continues Between August 27 th and October 31 st downloads occurred from: –27 open proxy servers at –16 different sites As JSTOR staff denied each proxy server, the abuse moved on. ~51,000 articles downloaded from 11 journals

How Is It Done?

JSTOR – January Automate The Process Download lists of open proxies Automate a process to probe each to see if there is access to restricted resources Identify a set of open proxy servers with such access and set them aside Automate a process to download content From the “confirmed” list – commence downloading.

JSTOR – January Not an Isolated Case We have found web pages providing explicit instructions for others to help them exploit open proxies in order to download content.

Not an Isolated Case

JSTOR – January Not an Isolated Case - Translations –“The Bible for Downloading Journal Articles” –“To be blunt about it, you find an overseas proxy. The institution that the proxy server belongs to has spent money to buy the electronic edition of some journal, and then you use this proxy, (so) of course you can download the entire text of that journal!” –“I cannot deny that some servers can download complete texts from many journals, but please, everyone, let’s not grab onto the ones which are easy to use and use them madly. The result of doing so will be to hasten the death of that server! So when you are using them, it’s best to do so equitably!”

Not an Isolated Case

Questions & Discussion

JSTOR – January What to do? Shibboleth DLF Certificates Education Drive all campus access through a set of properly authenticated proxy servers