Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Someone is running mass vulnerability scans, spoofing AI bots like ClaudeBot

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

1. Spoofed user‑agents & bot traffic from VPS/proxies

“Many of those user‑agents listed are often faked. Look up which ASN owns their IP. If I block most VPS providers most of the faked bots vanish…” — Bender
“Yeah, that's exactly what these visits are: faked user agents that fail IP verification or Web Bot Auth. What's interesting is the surge across so many websites in the last week.” — gavinhking

2. Unreliable geolocation & attribution

“From a technical perspective, all this “china/russia” attribution is built on a quite shaky foundation.” — bflesch
“Problem here is there are not single fibers attaching (most) countries, but a bunch of them. If you control both the ingress and egress for some particular users it's possible, but if you don't then your probing packing may end up back in China with a lot of evidence of backscatter.” — pixl97

3. Practical blocking approaches & community tools

“You can block entire ASNs. If you are frustrated with bots, blocking Tencent's entire IP address space would have very few downsides.” — reincoder
“Blocklist download and configuration: https://knock-knock.net/blocklist” — djkurlander

These three themes capture the prevailing concerns: the prevalence of fake bot traffic, the fragility of country‑level attribution, and the range of community‑driven methods for detecting and blocking unwanted requests.


🚀 Project Ideas

Generating project ideas…

BotBlock.io - Real-time Bot & VPS Detection API

Summary

  • Provide an inexpensive, real-time API that classifies incoming traffic as legit user, VPS, residential proxy, or AI bot using free IP reputation and heuristic data.
  • Enable website owners to block or throttle malicious traffic without affecting genuine VPN users.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Site operators, SaaS platforms, security-focused devs
Core Feature Live traffic classification with on‑the‑fly block/allow list generation
Tech Stack Node.js/Express API, MaxMind GeoIP2 (free tier), IPinfo Lite, Redis cache, Cloudflare Workers (edge execution)
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: Tiered subscription (Free 10k req/mo, $19/mo for 250k, $99/mo unlimited)

Notes

  • HN commenters repeatedly asked for a cheap way to block VPS ranges without breaking legitimate VPN traffic – this API directly answers that.
  • Offering a simple curl‑compatible endpoint lets developers plug it into Nginx, Caddy, or custom middleware instantly.
  • Integration with Cloudflare Workers allows edge‑level blocking, reducing server load.

VPS Shield – Open-source Nginx/Caddy Bot Blocker with Adaptive Heuristics

Summary

  • Release a lightweight, open‑source module/tool that automatically generates and updates Nginx/Caddy configurations to block faked user‑agents, residential proxies, and known VPS ASNs while preserving legitimate traffic.
  • Includes heuristic checks (HTTP/2 support, header fingerprinting, request rate anomalies) to catch sophisticated bots.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Sysadmins, DevOps engineers, hobbyist blog owners
Core Feature Auto‑generated blocklists + adaptive heuristics for real‑time updates
Tech Stack Python CLI, Jinja2 templates, Docker container, SQLite DB for IP/ASN cache, Nginx include files or Caddyfile directives
Difficulty Low‑Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Community demand for a “drop‑in” solution that avoids costly commercial databases (e.g., $40k/yr) – this tool uses free IPinfo Lite and public ASN feeds.
  • Provides example configs that HN users can test on a throwaway server, addressing concerns about false positives discussed by Bender.

AttributionGuard – Free IP Spoofing Diagnostic Dashboard

Summary

  • Host a free, web‑based dashboard that lets site owners upload raw access logs and instantly receive analysis of likely spoofed origin IPs, country‑level attribution confidence, and suggested blocklist adjustments.
  • Visualizes ASN traffic share, HTTP version distribution, and flags inconsistencies that undermine IP‑based attribution.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Webmasters, security researchers, small‑scale hosting providers
Core Feature Log parsing → attribution confidence score → actionable blocklist export
Tech Stack Python/Flask backend, D3.js front‑end visualizations, SQLite for log storage, Docker Compose for deployment
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Several HN participants highlighted the unreliability of “China/Russia” attribution and the need for better diagnostic tools – this dashboard directly addresses that.
  • Open‑source and free to self‑host, encouraging community contributions and discussion on HN.

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