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NET-C0069 · IP & Internet Intelligence

How to Detect VPNs, Proxies and Tor

Label one address from a log you are allowed to hold, and do not survey people.

Updated 25 October 2026 · How-To

This is an original planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, an official standard, or legal advice. Example addresses use documentation ranges. Review every command before you paste it.

What this hour is for

The checkers say whether an address appears on a VPN, proxy, or Tor exit list they know. You type one address that already appeared in a log or a ticket you are allowed to hold. You do not sweep users, you do not correlate people, and you do not treat the label as proof of misconduct.

A label is a routing fact about an address. It is not an identity. Do not use it to unmask a person, to watch someone in secret, or to punish a user. If a written policy cares about this class of address on a service you operate, the policy is the authority, not this page.

Do not probe the address. Do not block the world because one label surprised you. One address, one note, then stop.

This page does not explain how to hide traffic or how to detect a specific person behind an exit.

The change you can finish

Apply nothing during the writing of the note. When the lab window opens, it is one change on the device named in the ticket. Read the draft, then the device, then decide.

Rollback is the file or the revision you saved first. You do not invent a rollback after the only copy is gone.

  1. Take one address from a log you may hold.
  2. Read the label.
  3. Write VPN, proxy, Tor exit, or none.
  4. Do not sweep a user list.
  5. Do not probe the address.
  6. If a block is even a question, hand it to a written policy.

Mistakes that outlive the command

How to Detect VPNs, Proxies and Tor goes wrong in a small set of ways. The list is here so the ticket can forbid them before the window.

Decisions to write down

One decision for How to Detect VPNs, Proxies and Tor: The address came from a log you may hold. The label is a fact about the address. No person was unmasked. No probe was sent. And any action waits on a written policy.

Checks before you call it done

Confirm this before you call the change done: One address is in the note. The label is written. No list of people was built. No probe was run. And no block was added in this hour. If one of those fails, stop.

Before you leave the device

How to Detect VPNs, Proxies and Tor ends when the hostname on the device matches the hostname in the ticket. If it does not, you are on the wrong box. Stop. A command that succeeded on the wrong box is not progress.

The draft stays a draft until a person has read the names in it. A generator does not log into the device and does not know which interface is the uplink. You delete a line that names a device, a zone, or a prefix you did not write down.

0.0.0.0/0 is not kept because a sample included it. A source you can say is the source you keep. 192.0.2.0/24, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, and 2001:db8::/32 are documentation. They belong in the note. They are not prefixes you type onto a production device because they appeared in a draft.

prompt-for-this is a reminder that a secret is missing. It is not a password, a key, a community string, or a pre-shared key you save in the ticket or in git. The real secret stays in the store.

One change is the window. A VLAN and a routing protocol and a VPN do not share it. If two things move and the result is wrong, you will not know which one did it. The next feature waits for its own page.

If the same step fails twice, stop for the day. The failure is the result. Adding a forum command beside a half-applied config produces a device nobody can rebuild. Restore the copy you took first.

A second person reads the device name and the change aloud. If they cannot find them in the ticket, the note is not done. Silence is not agreement. Then leave the device alone.

This page is a planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, not an official standard, and not a permission to touch a network you do not administer. The pillar guide owns the wider design. This page owns one lab proof.

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