Astrobuysell - Have I been barred?

[Spikey]

Exactly.

Just using Tor will get around any IP based restrictions.

That's if you're daft enough to believe that the exit nodes are not monitored in any way

[mallorcasaint]

Most people use a broadband router, and this gets its WAN (Public) IP address from the ISP. It is this address that is seen as the source address of any and all of your web requests and interactions. The local (Private) IP address is only known by the router and the ISP, the rest of the internet is completely unaware of it. You are your public IP address.

Most routers give out private addresses using one of two private address ranges:

10.0.0.0 /24 or

192.168.0.0 /24

Try this: go to a command prompt and type ipconfig <enter>

You will get something like 192.168.1.10 for example. This is your private address.

Now go to this web siteand you will see your public IP address*. This is the address that everyone on the internet sees as your address and this is the one that gets blocked.

Hope that helps.

Rob

*Your computer (via the router) is introducing itself to the web site and then asking the web site to respond by repeating the address that you have used to introduce yourself.

That's what I said. Your "dynamic" IP address is not seen by a public network, your WAN address is. You can also have a "dedicated" IP address ( I have one in my house in Spain ) but the addresses used by your PC's Laptops, phone etc will be a local (private) address, either dynamic or fixed. As you rightly point out, private addresses are in the ranges 10.0.0.0 /24 or

192.168.0.0 /24 and can also be 172.16.0.0

These are "non-Routable addresses" and the devices on the internet that move data from one place to another are specially programmed to recognize these addresses. Routers will recognize that these are private addresses belonging to your network and will never forward your traffic onto the Internet so for your connection to work; you will always require at least one real address from the general pool so that your home router can perform what is known as "Network Address Translation".

NAT is a process where your router changes your private IP Address into a public one so that it can send your traffic over the Internet, keeping track of the changes in the process. When the information comes back to your router, it reverses the change back from a real IP Address into a private one and forwards the traffic back to your computer.

[mallorcasaint]

I omitted the private range 169.254.0.0 sorry!

[Treeden]

That's what I said.....

I was just expanding a little on what you had said, not disagreeing. Sorry if it came across the wrong way.

[mallorcasaint]

I was just expanding a little on what you had said, not disagreeing. Sorry if it came across the wrong way.

Lol! No I didn't think you were disagreeing, sorry! Just wanted to expand on your expansion!

[JB80]

Well thankfully after checking the block does not apply to me for now which is a good thing.

I sympathise with the situation though from both sides.

It's seriously hard enough to get a response sometimes as it is as soon as you mention you are out of the UK though, I can't imagine this will help.

I just hope that all the honest people can regain the trust needed to see that not everyone is a scammer.

[iamjulian]

If Barry Kaan is any good he will just use an anonymouse proxy server to make it look as if he is on a UK IP address.

Just using Tor will get around any IP based restrictions.

I'm not sure ABS will thank you for posting ways and means of avoiding their blocks. Maybe this Barry Kaan character was already good at evading detection. Maybe he wasn't, until you gave him ideas of what to do. Melodramatic? Maybe, but I didn't have a clue about such things. Amazed the mods allow these comments to be honest.

[Treeden]

I'm not sure ABS will thank you for posting ways and means of avoiding their blocks. Maybe this Barry Kaan character was already good at evading detection. Maybe he wasn't, until you gave him ideas of what to do. Melodramatic? Maybe, but I didn't have a clue about such things. Amazed the mods allow these comments to be honest.

You don't need to browse an Astronomy forum to find details of how to circumvent basic IP address filtering. Google (other search engines are available) is all you need. The fact that you weren't aware of such things until you read those posts doesn't mean they let the cat out of the bag. It's just the world we live in.....

[iamjulian]

You don't need to browse an Astronomy forum to find details of how to circumvent basic IP address filtering. Google (other search engines are available) is all you need. The fact that you weren't aware of such things until you read those posts doesn't mean they let the cat out of the bag. It's just the world we live in.....

I know what you mean, but there is a chance this Barry Kaan chap is active on this website if he is genuinely interested in astronomy. What does it matter if that info is already posted everywhere else? Why help him learn how to do it here as well?

[Treeden]

I know what you mean, but there is a chance this Barry Kaan chap is active on this website if he is genuinely interested in astronomy. What does it matter if that info is already posted everywhere else? Why help him learn how to do it here as well?

First of all let me say that I know what you mean, and I agree that we should be careful about what we post. The truth is though that these proxies are not fool-proof by any means. Everything is traceable if you have the means. More importantly, a well-informed and determined set of Admins working together with their moderating team and a set of sharp and observant users, will present a far more difficult barrier to these scammers. I've only been here a short time but already I have seen how quickly and decisively unwanted behaviour is dealt with..... it scares me sometimes!

[x6gas]

So if there was a scammer from UK you'd all be blocked too? I think not, one rule for one country and one for users of another.

I know it's a free site, the owner can do what he likes, but discriminating against people from one country? It beggars belief.

..... And no I'm not Barry Khan!

I think it is perfectly reasonable to ban everyone from Spain as fair punishment for living somewhere that the weather is good enough to actually see the night sky occassionally!

[jam1e1]

For anyone interested is security worth reading a blog by Bruce Schneider it's got some great articles on risk and security/scammers (google it)

[JamesF]

For anyone interested is security worth reading a blog by Bruce Schneider it's got some great articles on risk and security/scammers (google it)

Schneier, without the 'd' But yes, his writing relating to security and risk management is always worth a read. His "Applied Cryptography" book is also good, if hard work.

James