Good Luck, I'm Behind 7 Proxies

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Part of a series on Internet Slang. [View Related Entries]

About

"Good luck, I'm behind 7 proxies" is a catchphrase typically used as a sarcastic retort when someone either threatens to report you to the authorities, or claims to be able to track down your location.

Origin

While no archive of the thread exists, the phrase is believed to come from a 4chan thread on September 15th, 2007.

After cracking into a woman's computer, Myspace account and college financial assistance fund, the hackers posted several pictures and videos of her on 4chan. When she became aware of this, she went to 4chan in an attempt to have them taken down. After threatening to involve the authorities, she was met with the response: “I WENT THROUGH 7 PROXIES GOOD LUCK". The following screenshot is reported to have come from the thread:^[1]

There is an archived thread from the same day that mentions "7 proxies" as a new slang term.^[2] Afterwards 4chan implemented a wordfilter to replace "7" with over 9000. ^[12]

Spread

On March 1st, 2008, an image macro using a modified version of the phrase was posted to the website MyConfinedSpace.^[3]

On March 11th, 2008, a YouTube user named trollercoasterlulz referenced the phrase during a raid on another YouTube user named GayDiamond:

On October 20th, 2008, a Yahoo answers question was posted asking "Is it possible to configure FireFox 3.3 to use 7 proxies?" that may have been a joke referencing the phrase.^[4]

An Ubuntu Forums thread from January 31st, 2011, discusses the validity of using 7 proxies to anonymously browse the web.^[5] Some claimed the best way method is to use Tor client software^[6], rather than attempt to go through multiple proxy servers.

Use of the phrase can be found on various sites including the Anime Waves Forums^[7], The Huffington Post^[8], The Forsaken World Forum^[9], and the Sherdog Forums.^[10]

A Facebook page for the phrase has over 200 'likes' as of June 2011.^[11]