Interesting way used to catch them, using the Akamai header.

Only thing left from the article would be a portscan proving that a big percentage of the listed hosts are webcams, home routers and other insecure IoT stuff. They use a backconnect to route traffic trough compromised hosts, this is common practice in the VPN industry.

I'm of course biased, but think twice before supporting with your wallet this kind of scum.