Here's the problem with offering VIPS the ability to use VPNs and why it's not likely working.
Let's break down what are systems detect ip and can potentially ban... And why it may or may not be working for anyone, regardless of user status.
1) cloudflare: this is the DNS server that chatave uses. When your browser requests chat-Avenue.com your system goes to its name server to see where it's located. Cloudflare returns the ip. That being said, cloudflare also provides a caching, user legitimacy validation, and DDoS attack services. That means that it fronts everything through a caching proxy so you're never directly interacting with the chatave servers. It also verifies that you're a legitimate user and not some sort of bot. And also makes sure you're not flooding the chatave server with an attack. All that said, this is their first line of defense. In addition to making sure you're not a bot it also does some checks to make sure you're also, if configured to disallow it, not using a vpn/proxy service or coming from a specific geographic region.
2) if cloudflare approves the connection request it goes on to the web server. This is the service on the chatave server that serves the web pages to your browser. Here there's a mirade of plugins and/or manual configurations that can block specific proxy/vpn and/or geographic regions.
3) lastly, the chat software. This is where the supposed VIP feature is enabled... At the last step... Where the software is also capable of blocking specific ips, vpn/proxi e's and potentially geographic regions (I dunno for sure). So even if you've got VIP status, if cloudflare and the webserver end up blocking you it doesn't really matter who you are.
But how do they know if you're using a vpn/proxy? Well, there's a couple of ways.
A) referrer header field. When you send a browser request it sends a header with a bunch of stuff in it. Some authentication, some cookie related, some about your browser type and that.... And proxy/vpns are supposed to send a field that indicates that its on behalf of another client, aka proxied. Now not all vpns will so its not reliable to use to detect.
B) the ip address. Popular VPNs will use a cluster of ip addresses from different data centers if they're offering geographic location options and of course they're known.
C) vpn detection services. Some services provide the ability to determine if an ip is a proxy or VPN based on their own interactions with the ip and known VPN ip addresses.
Cloudflare uses a combination of all of these. The web server could use if configured with a plugin any of the three. And the chat software uses the VPN detection service.
A problem that can occur is if a non-VIP user gets banned on a vpn and a VIP user later uses the same service, then the VIP user could get the same message. Assuming it gets passed cloudflare and the webserver.
Also, listing which VPNs a VIP can use defeats the purpose of allowing just VIP to use vpn if that vpn doesn't get flagged by any of the services as a vpn. Cause then anyone can use it and get it blocked.
