The vocabulary, without the hand-waving

An Android emulator is software that runs Android as a guest on a host computer — the Android Studio emulator, BlueStacks, LDPlayer, Nox or Genymotion. It executes apps without physical hardware, which makes it fast, free and disposable, and leaves a set of synthetic values that distinguish it from a real handset.

The Android ID is a 64-bit value, shown as sixteen hexadecimal characters, that Android generates to identify a device to an app. Since Android 8 it is scoped per app signing key rather than global, so different developers see different values on the same handset. A factory reset regenerates it.

A BSSID is the MAC address of a wifi access point — the 48-bit identifier that distinguishes one router from another broadcasting the same network name. Because access points are geographically fixed and mapped in public databases, the set of BSSIDs a device can see implies a physical location without any use of GPS.

build.prop is the Android system file holding a device’s build properties — manufacturer, brand, model, product, Android version, build ID and build fingerprint — written when the firmware is compiled. Apps read these through the Build class to know what device they are running on, which puts the file at the centre of device identity.

A device fingerprint is the combination of hardware and software values an app reads to recognise a specific device — build properties, screen metrics, sensor list, codec list, GPU strings, timezone, locale and installed packages. Individually common, together they are near-unique, and they are checked against each other for contradictions.

Device isolation is the practice of giving each account its own device identity and its own network path, so that no observable value links one account to another. It covers hardware identifiers, system values, storage, cookies, exit IP and timing — anything shared across accounts becomes a correlation point.

The IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) is a 15-digit number identifying a mobile device on cellular networks. Its first eight digits are a GSMA-allocated Type Allocation Code naming the model, the next six are a serial, and the last is a Luhn check digit. It belongs to the hardware, not the SIM.

A MAC address is a 48-bit hardware identifier assigned to a network interface — wifi, Bluetooth or Ethernet — written as six hexadecimal pairs. Its first three bytes are an Organisationally Unique Identifier registered with the IEEE, so the address is a public, checkable claim about who built the radio.

CGNAT (carrier-grade network address translation) lets an internet provider place many subscribers behind a single public IP address. It is standard practice on mobile networks, where address scarcity means dozens to hundreds of customers share one public address at any moment, with no inbound reachability of their own.

A datacenter proxy routes traffic through an IP address owned by a hosting company rather than a consumer internet provider. It is the cheapest and fastest proxy category, and the easiest to identify as non-residential, since the address registration is public and shipped in every commercial geolocation database.

An ISP proxy is an IP address registered to a consumer internet provider but hosted in a datacenter. It combines the residential registration that makes an address look ordinary with the stability and speed of server infrastructure, and it is normally sold per IP rather than per gigabyte.

A mobile proxy routes traffic through an IP address assigned by a cellular carrier to a device on its 4G or 5G network. Because carriers place hundreds of subscribers behind each public address using carrier-grade NAT, mobile IPs are shared by design — which makes co-location on one address uninformative.

Proxy rotation is the automatic switching of exit IP address between requests or on a timer. It spreads traffic across many addresses so no single one accumulates volume, and it is the default behaviour of most residential and datacenter pools.

A residential proxy routes traffic through an IP address belonging to a real consumer internet connection, assigned by a home ISP. Because the autonomous system announcing that address is registered to a broadband provider rather than a hosting company, it carries no datacenter signature and survives the first check a platform runs.

SOCKS5 is a proxy protocol, specified in RFC 1928, that forwards raw TCP and optionally UDP traffic between a client and a destination without interpreting it. Because it works below the application layer, it can carry any protocol — not just HTTP — which makes it the usual choice for routing an entire device.

A sticky session keeps a proxy connection on the same exit IP for a set duration — commonly ten to sixty minutes — instead of rotating on every request. It is the setting that lets a rotating residential pool behave like a fixed address for as long as a task takes.

Account warmup is the period after creating an account when it is used lightly and normally — browsing, scrolling, following — before doing anything the account was made for. It gives the account an ordinary usage history instead of appearing and immediately acting, which is what most new-account limits are measuring.

ADB (Android Debug Bridge) is the command-line tool for communicating with an Android device — installing packages, reading logs, running shell commands and automating input. It works over USB or over TCP, and it is the standard interface for driving a device programmatically rather than by hand.

Multi-accounting is operating several accounts on the same platform in parallel, each meant to stand on its own. It is routine work for agencies managing client brands, sellers running multiple storefronts and marketers testing across markets — and it requires that the accounts share nothing a platform can observe and join on.

RPA (robotic process automation) is software that performs interface actions the way a person would — tapping, typing, scrolling and waiting — rather than calling an API. On mobile it drives real apps through their real screens, which is the only option when no public API exposes the actions you need.