# IP Lookup Help
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-lookup-help/652334
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 8, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-lookup-help/652334 "2013-03-08T01:27:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@melon6629](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melon6629)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-lookup-help/652334/1 "2013-03-08T01:27:12Z")
Hi there!
Bear with me, because I’m all kinds of techno stupid. Please don’t laugh.
I run a cutesy little self help blog and I’ve encountered a sort of cyber stalker. They were originally using web based proxy sites until I caught on. Well, now I’m getting hits that turn up on an IP tracker that I’m using, but not on the internal sites, which is usually a spam bot (but normally they tell me) or a proxy address.
Well, I’m suddenly getting a lot of traffic from Japan and one IP switched from one in the UK to one in Spain, or my tracker isn’t getting the landing page info (it usually does) or the User Agent String (which it usually does).
Anywho, I’ve tried looking them up to see if they were proxy sites, but I can’t seem to find out. Could someone help me figure out how I would, or even look them up if I provided them? I’d really appreciate it!
---
### Author:  [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2013, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-lookup-help/652334/2 "2013-03-08T03:16:30Z")
Whilst their behaviour may be odd, I’m not sure what harm they intend, if any. Running any site demonstrates there are many oddballs on the internet, and wasting time thinking about them **unless** they are likely to ddos or hack the site won’t do you the faintest good.
That said, I don’t know much about this, but _any_ free IP Look-Up service will attempt to match it against known proxies.
> **[Tools](https://www.whatismyip.com/tools/)**
>
> Our IP Tools are free\* to use. Tools include IP Address Lookup, IP WHOIS Lookup, Hostname Lookup, Server Headers Check, Blacklist Check, Traceroute, User Agent Info, IP Widget
[http://whatismyipaddress.com/proxy-check](http://whatismyipaddress.com/proxy-check)
etc… There are also commercial proxy detection services used by merchants which probably have more success, such as:
**[FraudLabs IP2Proxy](http://www.fraudlabs.com/ip2proxy.aspx#pricing)**
This seems to cost a lot, but there seems to be either a free license or trial with 90 credits a month; but investigate very carefully before signing up to such a service.
Still, supposing you find proxies, what are you going to do with the information ? The more you ban IPs the quicker they switch to another proxy…
---
### Author:  [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2013, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-lookup-help/652334/3 "2013-03-08T07:16:34Z")
> [@melon6629](#):
>
> Could someone help me figure out how I would, or even look them up if I provided them? I’d really appreciate it!
I can check several sources if you PM me the IP addresses.
Just from the countries you’ve mentioned, it’s very likely they are open proxies.
---
### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2013, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-lookup-help/652334/4 "2013-03-08T07:31:19Z")
What is this person actually doing? Just accessing your site? Posting weird crap in your comment forms? Trying to break something? This may or may not be worth a lot of your time, is my point here.
---
### Author:  [@melon6629](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melon6629)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2013, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-lookup-help/652334/5 "2013-03-08T23:51:21Z")
It’s more someone in my personal life who would be accessing the site excessively after promising to leave me alone, but still harrasses my friends, etc.
So, it’s more wondering if this someone is accessing my site through proxies because it’s kind of weirding me out.
---
### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2013, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-lookup-help/652334/6 "2013-03-09T01:41:37Z")
Frankly, it’s more likely to be a spam bot going through trying to harvest email addresses. Unless the person’s told you they’re accessing your site through proxies, the spam bot hypothesis is a lot more likely.
---
### Author:  [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-lookup-help/652334/7 "2013-03-10T21:58:02Z")
I checked the list you sent in a PM.
They’re not proxies, web servers or recently active spambots. I’m reasonably certain some of them belong to a VPN network, but I don’t see anything tying them all together.
I also don’t see anything I wouldn’t expect to see from time to time on any random blog. Don’t waste your time.