Peering through the shroud: the effect of edge opacity on ip-based client identification
Martín Casado, Michael J. Freedman · 2007
Abstract Online services often use IP addresses as client identifierswhen enforcing access-control decisions. The academic community has typically eschewed this approach, how-ever, due to the effect that NATs, proxies, and dynamic addressing have on a server's ability to identify individualclients. Yet, it is unclear to what extent these edge technolo-gies actually impact the utility of using IP addresses as client identifiers. This paper provides some insights intothis phenomenon. We do so by mapping out the size and extent of NATs and proxies, as well as characterizing thebehavior of dynamic addressing.