Good to be back

[Mikeoadby]

I have been living in Russia for three years and thought that Talking Balls was dead!!! Never been able to get you and missed all the talk on Joey etc. Looks like, somehow and for some unfathomable reason, this site is blocked from here. Had to live only by the words of Stringer and Young - never felt so alone. Finally found a way around it. And to greet all you Champion Supporters.
Mike. Moving to Serbia next month. Normal service resumed, I hope.

 

[Jeff]

Sorry, that was my fault. There were so many attempted hacks and spam coming from Russia I blocked the whole country. I didn't realise we had any genuine members there.
A number of other countries are blocked for the same reason, mainly in eastern Europe and Asia.

 

[Blaarev]

Ah! I thought it might have had something to do with the moob parties that caused Putin to block it.

 

[Mikeoadby]

I understand. What about Serbia?

 

[Jeff]

I understand. What about Serbia?

You should be OK there.

Whenever my server's firewall detects someone trying something naughty it sends me a report which includes the country it originated from. Some countries are far worse than others, which is why I blocked entire countries if I didn't think we had any members there. The attempted break ins aren't just a security risk, they can also use up server resources and slow the site down.

These are the current blocked countries:
Russia, China, Ukraine, Brazil, Taiwan, Korea, Iran, Romania, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Indonesia

I'll be removing the block on Brazil as I imagine there will be people there for the World Cup who might want to access the site.
The blocking is based on a range of IP addresses, so it's not 100% accurate, and it's usually easy to avoid the block if you use a proxy or the Opera browser with turbo enabled.

 

[Blaarev]

You should be OK there.

Whenever my server's firewall detects someone trying something naughty it sends me a report which includes the country it originated from. Some countries are far worse than others, which is why I blocked entire countries if I didn't think we had any members there. The attempted break ins aren't just a security risk, they can also use up server resources and slow the site down.

These are the current blocked countries:
Russia, China, Ukraine, Brazil, Taiwan, Korea, Iran, Romania, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Indonesia

I'll be removing the block on Brazil as I imagine there will be people there for the World Cup who might want to access the site.
The blocking is based on a range of IP addresses, so it's not 100% accurate, and it's usually easy to avoid the block if you use a proxy or the Opera browser with turbo enabled.

So that is not the reason for why SwedeFox have disappeared. Unless he's moved to one of those countries of course.

 

[bocadillo]

I have been living in Russia for three years and thought that Talking Balls was dead!!! Never been able to get you and missed all the talk on Joey.

Nobody has even mentioned Joey in all the time you have been away.

 

[Mikeoadby]

I don't believe that - everybody always talks about Joey - or I have lost touch that much? Thanks Jeff, I appreciate your difficulties. The stupid thing is that I have been using VPN all the time. I shan't get lost again.

 

[Nottingham Fox]

When I was in India back in January, Jeff was most accommodating in allowing me to access the site. I gave him the IP address and within minutes I was allowed on.

 

[Macky]

You should be OK there.

Whenever my server's firewall detects someone trying something naughty it sends me a report which includes the country it originated from. Some countries are far worse than others, which is why I blocked entire countries if I didn't think we had any members there. The attempted break ins aren't just a security risk, they can also use up server resources and slow the site down.

These are the current blocked countries:
Russia, China, Ukraine, Brazil, Taiwan, Korea, Iran, Romania, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Indonesia

I'll be removing the block on Brazil as I imagine there will be people there for the World Cup who might want to access the site.
The blocking is based on a range of IP addresses, so it's not 100% accurate, and it's usually easy to avoid the block if you use a proxy or the Opera browser with turbo enabled.

What gets served up instead? Do you redirect them all to a particular page?

 

[Jeff]

What gets served up instead?

Nothing. The firewall completely blocks the IP from the web server, so to the person trying to access the page it just looks like the site doesn't exist, they'll get an error message in their browser. The vast majority of traffic from the countries blocked is bad crawlers, scrapers, spambots, and automated log in attempts.

 

[Doggie_muz]

bad crawlers, scrapers, spambots

Pretty sure I've seen all of them in concert...

 

[fox58]

Nothing. The firewall completely blocks the IP from the web server, so to the person trying to access the page it just looks like the site doesn't exist, they'll get an error message in their browser. The vast majority of traffic from the countries blocked is bad crawlers, scrapers, spambots, and automated log in attempts.

When I was in Russia, I could google talking balls, but when attempting to connect, it said website not found!
I could get onto foxestalk:icon_eek:

 

[Lako42]

When I was in Russia, I could google talking balls, but when attempting to connect, it said website not found!
I could get onto foxestalk:icon_eek:

I can see why you are moving.

 

[Mikeoadby]

Hey, Lako, not too bad in Russia if you don't mind endless paperwork, driving like you've never seen before and the Russians' innate inability to queue. Glad to be moving on, though. But I shall always come back and visit - Lake Baikal is just a stunning place!