TexasCHLforum.com

I was in Europe for a couple of weeks. While there I tried to access the forum but couldn't. I kept getting a message that my IP address was banned. I was not using any VPN or IP spoofing. Can someone explain this?

Thanks.

I can't answer for what this forum does or doesn't use, but on my forums I use various blocking lists that are subscribed to. Those create and maintain lists of IP addresses that have been flagged for spam and/or hacking. If you just happen to land on one of those IP addresses because that is for example, the hotel's IP, it thinks you are them. One first thing to do is to use something like whatismyip.com to find the IP address you are on, and then drop that into Google. If that IP has been blocked recently it will come up with those results - several of the big anti-hacker coalitions post and keep that current.

I am currently deployed to Afghanistan and had the same thing happen when I got over here. It is probably due to your location. After talking to the moderators I was given temporary permission to use a VPN until I return. You might consider doing the same.

Dad24GreatKids wrote:I was in Europe for a couple of weeks. While there I tried to access the forum but couldn't. I kept getting a message that my IP address was banned. I was not using any VPN or IP spoofing. Can someone explain this?

Thanks.

Were you able to read the Forum but not log in? If so, then it you may have been in an area where the entire IP block is locked out. That only prevents spammers from logging on; it doesn't stop them from reading the Forum. To my knowledge, the only countries we've blocked are China, India, Vietnam and possibly Russia. If you couldn't even read the Forum, then you were being blocked from their side.

Chas.

You can try releasing and renewing your IP address....

http://www.tp-link.us/faq-96.html

Charles L. Cotton wrote:

Dad24GreatKids wrote:I was in Europe for a couple of weeks. While there I tried to access the forum but couldn't. I kept getting a message that my IP address was banned. I was not using any VPN or IP spoofing. Can someone explain this?

Thanks.

Were you able to read the Forum but not log in? If so, then it you may have been in an area where the entire IP block is locked out. That only prevents spammers from logging on; it doesn't stop them from reading the Forum. To my knowledge, the only countries we've blocked are China, India, Vietnam and possibly Russia. If you couldn't even read the Forum, then you were being blocked from their side.

Chas.

That's interesting. I couldn't even read the forums when I started getting blocked. I wonder why they would block this forum from a military post. Granted the internet service we have is civilian, it still doesn't make sense.

When I was in Istanbul, I found a number of sites that were inaccessible from the hotel. This was a few years ago, before I retired, and before I was a user here. YouTube was one. Photos posted on websites, or ads, were often blocked.

I was surprised. This was a very westernized, very cosmopolitan, international hotel. I was gratified that attempting to check in on some financial sites I use set off all kinds of security attention and precautions.

I've not had any noticeable restrictions in my wife's home village in France, or in Switzerland.

I was blocked while sitting in the local Best Buy waiting for the Geek Squad to repair one of my machines, from any of the several gun related sites I frequent, on their Wifi, so I whipped out my iPhone and used the hotspot.

Goldspurs wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:

Dad24GreatKids wrote:I was in Europe for a couple of weeks. While there I tried to access the forum but couldn't. I kept getting a message that my IP address was banned. I was not using any VPN or IP spoofing. Can someone explain this?

Thanks.

Were you able to read the Forum but not log in? If so, then it you may have been in an area where the entire IP block is locked out. That only prevents spammers from logging on; it doesn't stop them from reading the Forum. To my knowledge, the only countries we've blocked are China, India, Vietnam and possibly Russia. If you couldn't even read the Forum, then you were being blocked from their side.

Chas.

That's interesting. I couldn't even read the forums when I started getting blocked. I wonder why they would block this forum from a military post. Granted the internet service we have is civilian, it still doesn't make sense.

This is the first time I've read that the Forum is blocked on a military base. That's a bit hypocritical.

Chas.

Charles L. Cotton wrote: ...
This is the first time I've read that the Forum is blocked on a military base. That's a bit hypocritical.

Chas.

I'm not surprised. The military leadership was gunphobic when I retired 10 years ago, and under the regime of you-know-who it certainly has not gotten better. Base/Post internet filters generally a service contract with some private company who more or less arbitrarily sorts websites into categories, and the customer (i.e. the base/post comm people) decide which categories to block. So they may very well ban categories like "weapons" (!), "violence", "political", etc, which is a pretty broad brush, and it wouldn't surprise me if whoever the service company hired to sort websites put TexasCHLforum.com into any or all of those. Exceptions for individual websites could be made, but of course the process to do that is bureaucratic and cumbersome, and easily denied.

At least when I was closer involved with this kind of thing, I didn't get the impression that the "sorting" was a carefully considered process, it seemed to be some people were hired at less-than-steller pay rates to rapidly go through lists of websites and plunk each one into the "appropriate" category. I think a lot of what constituted "appropriate" depended on the mindset of whichever flunky happened to come across your website during the process. I noticed (when I was in) that conservative websites seem end up in the "political" (and usually blocked) category a lot, while more liberal ones would be in the (unblocked) "news" category.

ELB wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote: ...
This is the first time I've read that the Forum is blocked on a military base. That's a bit hypocritical.

Chas.

I'm not surprised. The military leadership was gunphobic when I retired 10 years ago, and under the regime of you-know-who it certainly has not gotten better. Base/Post internet filters generally a service contract with some private company who more or less arbitrarily sorts websites into categories, and the customer (i.e. the base/post comm people) decide which categories to block. So they may very well ban categories like "weapons" (!), "violence", "political", etc, which is a pretty broad brush, and it wouldn't surprise me if whoever the service company hired to sort websites put TexasCHLforum.com into any or all of those. Exceptions for individual websites could be made, but of course the process to do that is bureaucratic and cumbersome, and easily denied.

At least when I was closer involved with this kind of thing, I didn't get the impression that the "sorting" was a carefully considered process, it seemed to be some people were hired at less-than-steller pay rates to rapidly go through lists of websites and plunk each one into the "appropriate" category. I think a lot of what constituted "appropriate" depended on the mindset of whichever flunky happened to come across your website during the process. I noticed (when I was in) that conservative websites seem end up in the "political" (and usually blocked) category a lot, while more liberal ones would be in the (unblocked) "news" category.

I think in this case it is more the civilian company that provides internet. I can actually access the forums from my work computer, but I have to make sure it is only when I am off shift.

Not to hijack the thread, but how is using VPN prohibited? I did review the forum rule on spoofing.

When I was in China on business several years ago, the only way I could get to my files or any websites was to use VPN through my University. I wasn't intentionally trying to hide my identity.

The message saying that the IP was banned came from the forum. I couldn't read any of the forum messages while connected to the hotel wifi. When I went to the local cellular provider then I was able to connect. I was in Belgium when this happened.

Goldspurs wrote:

ELB wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote: ...
This is the first time I've read that the Forum is blocked on a military base. That's a bit hypocritical.

Chas.

I'm not surprised. The military leadership was gunphobic when I retired 10 years ago, and under the regime of you-know-who it certainly has not gotten better. Base/Post internet filters generally a service contract with some private company who more or less arbitrarily sorts websites into categories, and the customer (i.e. the base/post comm people) decide which categories to block. So they may very well ban categories like "weapons" (!), "violence", "political", etc, which is a pretty broad brush, and it wouldn't surprise me if whoever the service company hired to sort websites put TexasCHLforum.com into any or all of those. Exceptions for individual websites could be made, but of course the process to do that is bureaucratic and cumbersome, and easily denied.

At least when I was closer involved with this kind of thing, I didn't get the impression that the "sorting" was a carefully considered process, it seemed to be some people were hired at less-than-steller pay rates to rapidly go through lists of websites and plunk each one into the "appropriate" category. I think a lot of what constituted "appropriate" depended on the mindset of whichever flunky happened to come across your website during the process. I noticed (when I was in) that conservative websites seem end up in the "political" (and usually blocked) category a lot, while more liberal ones would be in the (unblocked) "news" category.

I think in this case it is more the civilian company that provides internet. I can actually access the forums from my work computer, but I have to make sure it is only when I am off shift.

One thing to consider is if the base has a DODEA school on base. By federal law, certain categories of sites are prohibited on the internet services provided into schools that receive federal funds, and DOD schools have to follow that law, as well. If the internet provider is also providing the personal-use internet service to the base's quarters and rec areas (as is happening to a friend of mine stationed in Germany, now) then the content is filtered to the base as a whole, not just the school. Seems like a crock, but there it is.

n5wd wrote:

Goldspurs wrote:

ELB wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote: ...
This is the first time I've read that the Forum is blocked on a military base. That's a bit hypocritical.

Chas.

I'm not surprised. The military leadership was gunphobic when I retired 10 years ago, and under the regime of you-know-who it certainly has not gotten better. Base/Post internet filters generally a service contract with some private company who more or less arbitrarily sorts websites into categories, and the customer (i.e. the base/post comm people) decide which categories to block. So they may very well ban categories like "weapons" (!), "violence", "political", etc, which is a pretty broad brush, and it wouldn't surprise me if whoever the service company hired to sort websites put TexasCHLforum.com into any or all of those. Exceptions for individual websites could be made, but of course the process to do that is bureaucratic and cumbersome, and easily denied.

At least when I was closer involved with this kind of thing, I didn't get the impression that the "sorting" was a carefully considered process, it seemed to be some people were hired at less-than-steller pay rates to rapidly go through lists of websites and plunk each one into the "appropriate" category. I think a lot of what constituted "appropriate" depended on the mindset of whichever flunky happened to come across your website during the process. I noticed (when I was in) that conservative websites seem end up in the "political" (and usually blocked) category a lot, while more liberal ones would be in the (unblocked) "news" category.

I think in this case it is more the civilian company that provides internet. I can actually access the forums from my work computer, but I have to make sure it is only when I am off shift.

One thing to consider is if the base has a DODEA school on base. By federal law, certain categories of sites are prohibited on the internet services provided into schools that receive federal funds, and DOD schools have to follow that law, as well. If the internet provider is also providing the personal-use internet service to the base's quarters and rec areas (as is happening to a friend of mine stationed in Germany, now) then the content is filtered to the base as a whole, not just the school. Seems like a crock, but there it is.

Lol. I assure you we have no DODEA schools here.

oohrah wrote:Not to hijack the thread, but how is using VPN prohibited? I did review the forum rule on spoofing.

When I was in China on business several years ago, the only way I could get to my files or any websites was to use VPN through my University. I wasn't intentionally trying to hide my identity.

Hmm....I swear it said using VPNs was not allowed when I ran into this issue back in August. Either I am read wrong or its been updated to reflect the change.