Search Engine / Proxy Server? 1

[Tezdread]

Hi, for some reason I have a problem connecting one of my win2k PC's for getting access to the internet....So what I tried after a few other things was to specify an IP address of an online server (for Proxy server), the thing is, as far as I know the server IP address I specified is not a Proxy server but infact a very popular Search engine.

As soon as I specified this new IP address I was able to connect to the Internet via my LAN and by the looks of it, the search engine server?

Is this possible? Is there a way to find out if the server IP address I specified is routing me? I can access the rest of the web with these settings so I don't have a problem, but would like to know if this possible.

I know there are proxy servers that allow you to connect and then information about surfing will only be traced back to the proxy server so could this be happening?

This gets more confusing! just tried grc.com and ran the port scan, the IP address that is displayed is not the IP address that I specified as the Proxy server and it is not my IP address? The results of the "NanoProbe" port scan show all ports as closed. Using a trace program I found that the IP address that is showing for that computer on my network is owned by the same company that provides my Cable Modem service. My server/gateway has a different IP address, and when I run the NanoProbe" on any of my other computers on the same internal network it shows the correct results.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Tezdread
"With every solution comes a new problem"

 

[pansophic]

In order for a proxy to work, the server that is acting as a proxy must be running software that acts as both a client (web browser) and a server. Your client connects to the proxy server and passes information about the site that it would like to view, and the proxy connects to that site as the client. When it receives the page, it sends it to your browser. The likelihood that the search engine is proxying your connections is EXTREMELY small.

To find out for sure, I would run WinDump to see what the contents of your web browsing actually look like, and what the destination address is for web browsing. If all packets have a destination address of the search engine, then you are actually proxying. If they don't then you are not proxying.

Based on your NanoScan, it seems like your ISP may be running a transparent proxy. With transparent proxies, the end user cannot see the proxy, and does not have to make any configuration changes. All web traffic is routed to the transparent proxy, and it has the ability to filter content or ads or modify pages in any fashion before the end user sees them. It can also be used to collect browsing habits of the users, which they can sell to marketing organizations along with your email address.

If you have access to a Linux or Unix box, you can run an application called hping2 that may shed some light on your configuration. Traceroute can be used to indicate the probable path to a server, and you can specify source and destination ports with hping2, so you can simulate web traffic to see if the web traffic takes a slightly different path (like through a proxy). Of course, if the proxy is always in the path, like built into a firewall, there won't be any difference.

BTW, do you have resolvable IP addresses for your cable modem? Or do they NAT the entire network? If the whole network is NAT'd, that may impact the NanoScan, but I don't know for sure.

pansophic

 

[Tezdread]

thanks pansophic, it looks like the NanoProbe was giveing an incorrect IP reading, I did another one on a different site and that showed my correct IP.

I checked my TCP/IP settings on the computer that wouldn't cannect the same as the others and I hadn't specified the DNS server, as soon as I changed this I could connect without specifying a proxy server.

Thanks again Tezdread
"With every solution comes a new problem"