Where Do Lodestate's US IPs Come From?

Does Lodestate run its own residential network?

No: Lodestate resells bandwidth from established partner networks and does not run its own network of residential devices. Recruiting device owners, often through apps and SDKs, is left to those partners. Lodestate adds accounts, the crypto checkout, the targeting syntax, support and abuse handling. It does not publish partner names; it publishes the rules it sets for partners and the limits of its checks.

What does Lodestate require from its partner networks?

Lodestate's own sourcing policy counts six rules for partner networks, listed below. Lodestate buys only from partner networks that accept the six rules below. These are Lodestate's purchasing requirements, not facts it has checked on every device.

1. Device-owner agreement: bandwidth only from devices whose owners agreed to share it and can stop.
2. No compromised devices: no traffic from malware, botnets or hijacked devices.
3. No seized or disrupted supply: no resold exits from networks such as NetNut or IPIDEA.
4. Real carrier SIMs: mobile ports run on SIMs from the named US and Canadian carriers.
5. Target blocking: partners support the Lodestate block list.
6. Abuse cooperation: partners act on forwarded abuse reports and announce withdrawn IP ranges.

Lodestate's policy is to stop buying from a partner once it learns that the partner broke these rules.

What can Lodestate not verify by itself?

Lodestate cannot inspect the devices behind partner IPs, so some sourcing questions stay open for any reseller, Lodestate included:

• whether each device owner fully understood the app or SDK terms they accepted;
• whether an IP sat in a botnet or another proxy pool before it joined a partner network;
• whether a partner buys part of its own supply from other networks;
• where each IP geolocation database places a given IP.

Instead, Lodestate reviews abuse reports by IP range, keeps its target blocks on every product and drops partners that break its rules.

Why did the NetNut seizure make sourcing a buyer's question?

As of October 2026, the public record on NetNut says:

• NetNut's domains were seized by the FBI and IRS-CI on July 2, 2026. The action was tied to the Popa botnet of "at least two million" compromised devices.
• Google saw 316 threat-actor clusters on suspected NetNut exits in one June 2026 week.
• netnut.io now reads "Seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation".
• Spur found residential-proxy SDKs in 42% of LG webOS apps and in more than 25% of Samsung Tizen apps.

Layer3 Intel counted 32.96 million IPv4 addresses on NetNut in the 30 days before it went dark on July 4. Of these, 16.90 million (51.27%) reappeared on other proxy networks within 14 days, and so did 78.8% of the freshest IPs. A seizure does not remove the devices, so their IPs can move to other networks.

What did Google find in the IPIDEA network?

Google announced on January 28, 2026 that it had disrupted the IPIDEA residential proxy network. Over 550 threat groups used IPIDEA exit nodes in one 7-day window, according to Google's threat intelligence team. The same post names 13 proxy brands linked to IPIDEA. Lodestate does not repeat that list; read it at the source before you choose any provider.

How can I check any proxy provider's sourcing?

Ask seven questions before you buy residential or mobile proxies from any provider, Lodestate included:

1. Written statement: does it say in writing where its residential IPs come from?
2. Device-owner terms: can it explain how device owners join and leave?
3. NetNut or IPIDEA links: does it appear in the NetNut reports or in Google's IPIDEA post?
4. Price floor: is it far below the market? Proxyway describes a grey market "where a gigabyte can cost $0.30 or even less".
5. Blocked targets: does it block banking, government and payment portals, and SMTP ports?
6. Abuse contact: is there an abuse address with a stated response time?
7. Acceptable use: does a public AUP say what happens to abusers?

How does Lodestate handle abuse reports about its IPs?

Lodestate handles abuse reports at [email protected]. Abuse reports are reviewed by a person, and confirmed abuse leads to suspension. It suspends accounts that break the Acceptable Use Policy, and forwards a report to the partner network when an IP range itself is the problem. The contact page lists what a report should contain.