The Proxy Ping — An Experiment in Indirectness

July 25, 2025

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Field Notes From a Leaky Network

Didn’t come to me.
Never does.

It routed the packet through someone else —
like it was avoiding a firewall.
TTL dropped each hop,
but the payload stayed intact:

“So… what are you working on?”

I could see the trace.
NAT’d through a friend-of-a-friend,
headers scrubbed,
origin masked.

I told them my NDA was with my cat.
They laughed.
But the ACK never came back.

An Experiment in Indirectness

Some questions don’t walk in the front door.
They circle the block a few times,
change jackets,
and pretend they’re “just in the neighborhood.”

So I built a small simulator.
Not because I had to.
Because it wouldn’t stop happening.

Server Module — The Courier Chain

import anvil.server
import random

FILTERS = [
    lambda m: m + " — they seemed nervous asking.",
    lambda m: "Not sure why they want to know, but: " + m,
    lambda m: m.replace("project", "‘project’").replace("budget", "budget??"),
    lambda m: f"They were talking about you when this came up: {m}",
    lambda m: f"Between us, they think this means something: {m}",
    lambda m: m + " (…and apparently you’d ‘react a certain way’.)",
    lambda m: f"They’re framing it as ‘just curious,’ but {m.lower()}",
]

@anvil.server.callable
def proxy_ping(seed, hops=5):
    message = seed
    chain = [f"Origin: {message}"]

    for i in range(1, hops + 1):
        # 95% chance someone can't resist adding *something*
        if random.random() < 0.95:
            message = random.choice(FILTERS)(message)
        chain.append(f"Hop {i}: {message}")

    chain.append(f"Final delivery: {message}")
    return "\n".join(chain)

Client Form — The Innocent Ask

from ._anvil_designer import ProxyPingFormTemplate
from anvil import *
import anvil.server

class ProxyPingForm(ProxyPingFormTemplate):
    def __init__(self, **properties):
        self.init_components(**properties)
        self.output_area.text = ""

    def start_button_click(self, **event_args):
        seed = (self.seed_text.text or "").strip()
        if not seed:
            self.output_area.text = (
                "Please provide a question you’re fine hearing back "
                "in unfamiliar handwriting."
            )
            return
        self.output_area.text = "Dispatching couriers..."
        result = anvil.server.call("proxy_ping", seed)
        self.output_area.text = result

Sample Run

Origin: Did we approve the budget for Q4?
Hop 1: They were talking about you when this came up: Did we approve the budget for Q4?
Hop 2: Not sure why they want to know, but: They were talking about you when this came up: Did we approve the budget for Q4?
Hop 3: They’re framing it as ‘just curious,’ but they were talking about you when this came up: did we approve the budget for q4?
Hop 4: …and so on.

By the time it comes back to you, it’s not even a question anymore — it’s a communal performance piece.

Takeaway

In networking, it’s called “routing through a proxy.”
In offices, it’s called Tuesday.

Check if your message survives the journey

hirabarton.anvil.app/proxyping — Because sometimes the shortest path is the one they’ll never take.

The Lab