Don't kill the messenger :) I agree, but had to remove forwarded for and via or 
I faced blocking and weirdness with several of the services I use. I won't name 
names cause I don't really want to pursue the debate. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Amos Jeffries [mailto:squ...@treenet.co.nz] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2014 9:39 PM
To: squid-users@squid-cache.org
Subject: Re: [squid-users] https://weather.yahoo.com redirect loop

On 21/08/2014 2:23 p.m., Lawrence Pingree wrote:
> No, I mean they are intentionally blocking with a configured policy, 
> its not a bug. :) They have signatures that match Via headers and 
> forwarded for headers to determine that it's squid. This is because 
> many hackers are using bounces off open squid proxies to launch web 
> attacks.
> 

That still sounds like a bug. Blocking on squid existence makes as much sense 
as blocking all traffic with UA header containing "MSIE" on grounds that 90% of 
web attacks come with that agent string.
The content inside those headers is also context specific, signature matching 
will not work beyond a simple proxy/maybe-proxy determination (which does not 
even determine non-proxy!).


A proposal came up in the IETF a few weeks ago that HTTPS traffic containing 
Via header should be blocked on sight by all servers. It got booted out on 
these grounds:

* the "bad guys" are not sending Via.

* what Via do exist are being sent by "good guys" who obey the specs but are 
othewise literally forced (by law or previous TLS based attacks) to MITM the 
HTTPS in order to increase security checking on that traffic (ie. AV scanning).

Therefore, the existence of Via is actually a sign of *good* health in the 
traffic and a useful tool for finding culprits behind the well behaved proxies.
 Rejecting or blocking based on its existence just increases the ratio of nasty 
traffic which makes it through. While simultaneously forcing the "good guys" to 
become indistinguishable from "bad guys". Only the "bad guys" get any actual 
benefit out of the situation.


Basically "via off" is a bad idea, and broken services (intentional or
otherwise) which force it to be used are worse than terrible.

Amos


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