Geekzone now blocking TOR access?

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Rikkitic

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Topic # 80673 2-Apr-2011 17:02

Can someone please explain why I get a 403 - Forbidden error when I try to access Geekzone via Tor? I'm not up to anything funny but I use Tor as a matter of routine for all my browsing and I didn't use to have this problem. Geekzone works fine when I bypass the proxy that runs via Tor but I feel naked without it. I'm not trying to hide who I am from the site (that would be pretty difficult anyway since I'm logged on) but I don't have this problem anywhere else and I would like to be the one to choose how I use my browser. Is this intentional or accidental?

I reject your reality and substitute my own. - Adam Savage

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Minimalist
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Reply # 454548 2-Apr-2011 17:04

Intentional.

A few clowns ruined it for the majority.

Rikkitic

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Reply # 454551 2-Apr-2011 17:21

Ok, I don't mind if there's a reason for it. Thanks for the response. Pity about the clowns, though.

I reject your reality and substitute my own. - Adam Savage

scottjpalmer

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Reply # 454553 2-Apr-2011 17:27

Rikkitic: Pity about the clowns, though.

Welcome to our world :-)

gible

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Reply # 454586 2-Apr-2011 19:42

scottjpalmer: Intentional.

A few clowns ruined it for the majority.

What did the clowns do?

freitasm

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Reply # 454588 2-Apr-2011 19:50

Used TOR to spam the board and protect themselves behind the system to troll others.

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

scottjpalmer

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Reply # 454589 2-Apr-2011 19:53

gible: What did the clowns do?

It doesn't really need to be said but here it is . . .

Stuff that they aren't supposed to do here, carried out under the cover of TOR making policing difficult.

Now back to normal programming . . .

EDIT: What MF said :-)

gible

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Master Geek

Reply # 454590 2-Apr-2011 20:01

Why so heavy handed? ie why not just block anonymous postings from Tor?

freitasm

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Reply # 454592 2-Apr-2011 20:06

Because we can't waste resources doing NS lookups for every IP address accessing the site, so I decided to block TOR exits.

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

gible

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Reply # 454602 2-Apr-2011 20:22

..and now that I look closer..anonymous postings are blocked anyway..

I've no idea what "waste resources doing NS lookups for every IP address accessing the site" means tho..or rather I do, but I have no idea how it's relevant.

freitasm

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Reply # 454605 2-Apr-2011 20:30

We try to make the site as fast as possible. We have managed to reduce average page load speed globally from nine seconds to four seconds.

If we had to check with the provided TOR NS to verify an IP is or is not a TOR exit, this would slow down the page for anyone trying to reply. For me this is not acceptable, so I decided to simply block the known TOR exit IP addresses.

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

gible

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Master Geek

Reply # 454607 2-Apr-2011 20:33

If we had to check with the provided TOR NS to verify an IP is or is not a TOR exit, this would slow down the page for anyone trying to reply. For me this is not acceptable, so I decided to simply block the known TOR exit IP addresses.

That's what I thought you meant....why bother with the NS lookup at all...why not just check against the known list?

freitasm

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Reply # 454613 2-Apr-2011 20:37

We currently have the ability to look up a geo location table with IP addresses, and block posts from certain countries known for spamming the forums before. It did help clean up a lot of spam.

As for TOR, we would have to create another table and also do a look up in this table, and like the country blocking only do it when posting.

This would allow people to READ via TOR, but not WRITE via TOR. It can be done, but not much time available to code this for now. Maybe in the future. Although I can still see people in the future complaining they can read but not write when using TOR anyway...

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

gible

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Reply # 454617 2-Apr-2011 20:54

Righty then...I guess I'm done. Thanx :)

Note to self: if Tor doesn't work, cycle for a new exit node.

codyc1515

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Reply # 454618 2-Apr-2011 20:56

freitasm: We currently have the ability to look up a geo location table with IP addresses, and block posts from certain countries known for spamming the forums before. It did help clean up a lot of spam.

As for TOR, we would have to create another table and also do a look up in this table, and like the country blocking only do it when posting.

This would allow people to READ via TOR, but not WRITE via TOR. It can be done, but not much time available to code this for now. Maybe in the future. Although I can still see people in the future complaining they can read but not write when using TOR anyway...

Why would any of that even matter if you have an account, surely they can just be blocked?

scottjpalmer

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Reply # 454627 2-Apr-2011 21:19

And then they ban-evade by getting a new account.

We don't do this stuff for fun, it is to preserve the GZ experience for all.

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