A lot of compromised home devices and cheap servers proxying traffic, from all over the world.

If that is the case how can you determine the reason for the activity?

Some fake user agent, some tell you who they are. Or.. do they?

Here-in is the problem. And if you block them, you risk blocking actual customers.

If they are using appropriated hardware, what possible reason could there be for them saying who they are?

	▲	esseph 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Three different "companies" normally: 1. The residential proxies 2. Scrapers, on behalf of or as an agent of the data buyer 3. Data buyer (ai training) Scrapers are buying from residential proxies, giving the data buyer a bit of a shield/deniability. The scrapers don't want to get outright blocked if they can avoid it, otherwise they have nothing to sell.