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[BruceS]

Today, 12th June 2024, I blocked some IP addresses to try to stop so many Bots hitting the website.
If you can't get to the forum you may need to let me know so I can exempt your IP from the block.
Thanks!

[supersparky]

Thanks Bruce.

[Shirley]

Sounds good Bruce, thanks for knowing how to do same.

[Eddy]

Thanks for doing the monitoring Bruce
I know very little about the subject - if our IP has been blocked, does that mean we can't access the forum via say our home internet ?
We would still be able to access forum to report by logging in and using someone else's internet connection ?

[BruceS]

A quick explaination here.
Almost everything on or connected to the Internet has an IP address. Computers etc really have trouble working out & following names like www.ozervnews.com so there is a facility for computers to quickly look up a name & resolve it into an IP address.
Nearly all people on the Internet have "dynamic" IP addresses, meaning they are continually changing each time you disconnect & reconnect to the Internet. So most times simply by turning off your Internet connection & reconnecting you will get a new IP address. You can test it by looking at www.whatismyip.com .
Now websites & major companies always keep a "static" IP address.
These sneaky Bots usually have a lot of IP addresses & continually manually change them to avoid getting blocked.
BUT! They usually get a range of IP's allocated to them like ...
173.252.69.7
173.252.84.23
etc
As you can see the 173.252 numbers are consistent.
So if I block 173.252.
It effectively blocks EVERY IP from 173.252.1.1 to 173.252.255.255

The IP ranges I've blocked are 173.252 & 68.171

[Greynomad]

Clever clogs!
Thanks for your vigilance, Bruce.

[Eddy]

You can test it by looking at www.whatismyip.com .

Thanks Bruce that was a good read