Black Viper website

Has anyone had problems accessing the Black Viper website or get the following message.

Alert ...
Due to abuse, the server banned your IP address.

If in error, send an E-mail to the hostmaster. If you are a site sucking robot, just go away.

Well, I have never abused the site, nor have I even visited that site prior to my one attempt today upon recommendation from a newsletter from TechTv re tweaking WinXP. Does it mean someone is using my IP Am puzzled!!

 

Hi Peaches

I,ve never had a problem accessing the Black Viper Website.

http://www.blackviper.com/





snowbound

 

Is it possible someone is using my IP but how. Would my computer have had to have been hacked. How would I go about tracking this down. Like I said, I have NEVER abused any site or did I steal any copywrites .... I never heard of Black Viper until I read the newsletter. Maybe I will begin by writing my server.

 

Have you done this?
Dolf

 

I am useing opera 7.23 and I just tried to go to your black viper link. The first three times I could not connect, after that I had no trouble connecting. maybe they are having server trouble.

 

Isn't it also possible an entire IP range was banned due to abuse?
(someone else's)

 

I have just sent an email to my server. As for Hostmaster, I presume it is for Black Viper. Well, I keep getting the same message no matter what I try for that website. I am completely dumbfounded.

 

no problems over here, but I think that's not the problem: She got BANNED

 

Well, I am on cable and hopefully I will get a reply from my server in the next day. If not, will phone them. In the meantime, I did a bit of searching and this is what I came up with ... see this site:

http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/99/10/11/991011oprx.xml

I am pretty sure that my computer has not been taken over, and I am the only user at home. Security on my computer is very tight ... thanks to Wilders. So, it would appear that someone is using my IP through another source. I probably would never have known this had I not tried to visit this site. So far, I have had no problems with other sites I visit.

 

I agree with LWM, but if you miss that site that much, I will make an offline copy for you

 

Thanks LWM - but that does not make me a happy camper!! Well, at least I will know in case I run into this situation again. I will post any reply my server gives as a matter of interest.

 

That sucks but you can always use a free web proxy, just search google for that phrase.

 

Since you can't access the Black Viper site, I'm copying and pasting a page from it to explain what measures the site owner has taken due to what he terms abuse of access and resulting bandwidth problems. No doubt this explains how easily others who have not previously visited his site could have been banned from access. Perhaps someone previously had your IP or perhaps you've been caught in a block ban as mentioned.
__________________________________________________
Abuse Rant: Home of Black Viper's Opinion
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Introduction.
For several months, I have been attacking my bandwidth problem from a totally different angle than I recently have. I was optimizing images, cutting down on all "extra" content, and compressing content for faster download time. However, after looking through my log files, that was not enough.

The issue.
Many legitimate people use different tools to make their personal internet experience a positive one, namely:

The use of "download managers"
"Offline browsers" or synchronizing a page (or complete domain) on a schedule
However, these type of tools put stress on a server for really no purpose.

I have witnessed in my log files, particular readers downloading my complete domain (all 700+ pages) and all images every 24 hours. Unfortunately, this is also the exact "signature" that "content thieves" have. These particular instances have also downloaded all content, regardless if it has changed from the previous access.

Another point to make is that these particular readers could be coming from the United States, or from a variety of other countries.

The solution.
I have made a conscious decision to ban all download managers and offline browsers, due to abuse of my network.

I have also banned access to my network from various foreign countries at a very low level.

Furthermore, I have banned access by IP addresses that use automated spidering software that choose to ignore robots.txt file. In only one hour, I captured an IP address from the Netherlands spidering all of my content while masquerading as a "valid user."

Those three items have resulted in a large decrease in bandwidth usage. This also has the positive result of allowing my "legitimate" readers greater bandwidth and faster access while they surf around my content.

The backlash.
I understand the implications of my decision. I know that I could possibly ban legitimate users of my content. However, the extreme measures I took was based on an overwhelming amount of abuse. No actions that any web master can take to solve the many issues that plague a public network, such as the internet, comes without risk.

I, however, am willing to take that chance.

On the positive side.
Initially, I was wanting to block access to my web server as, under normal conditions, this is the server that uses the most bandwidth. However, I also was wanting to ban particular countries access to my E-Mail servers. This would require a large amount of time to create access "rules" and requirements for too many different situations.

Why, you may ask? The main reason is several countries tend to "generate" much more spam than others (Note: Even though the United States is a very large generator of spam E-Mails, many of them are "bounced" off of servers located in a different country). Sifting through my previous E-Mail archive, I have never received a "legitimate" E-Mail from any person located in several of them. However, a large amount of spam is relayed through these particular foreign countries.

I have also witnessed many attempts at sucking my complete domain, including images, from particular countries. The only thing that I can conclude is these are actions related to attempts at Copyright violations and bandwidth theft.

I have since blocked several countries access to my DNS servers. This has several "good" effects:

Sending an E-Mail to any address requires a DNS lookup to "discover" the mail exchangers address for the target domain.
Blocking DNS queries from an IP address range stops the query and the E-Mail cannot be delivered.
That will effectively ban all spam being relayed from unsecured servers located in a country because of the lookup failure.
I have recently modified my web server to "change" the address by which my domain is accessible from.
If a particular user accesses my domain directly by IP address, it will redirect to the default domain, which will require a DNS lookup.
That redirection, if stemming from a banned country, will result in no further access to my content because of the lookup failure.

Conclusion.
Extreme measures are not even a solution for everyone. Some people and companies require relationships with countries around the world.

I am not one of them.

I have some rather dedicated readers in several countries that contact me often, to include:

Australia
Canada
Europe
Germany
Mexico
United States
Those countries, listed above, will never be banned completely. However, a couple Asian countries are currently on the chopping block.

Black Viper
December 7, 2003

 

News from Black Viper today.
Wednsday, December 17, 2003 @ 1:05 AM PST

I have had several complains from readers about my web server automatically banning their IP address because of "abuse." This is due to my recently implemented configuration to stop "bad" robots from sucking too much bandwidth. More information on this practice is located in my Abuse Rant. I implemented a "hidden link" which all "good" robots, including all major search engines, would ignore. Some proxy servers, pre-fetchers and firewall's chose to ignore the robots.txt standard. This is an issue to take up with the creators of those programs, not my web site.

I have temporarily removed that particular function from the server. All access is currently available with the following exceptions:
I still block all "offline browser" access. This is due to many people synchronizing the entire domain (740+ pages) every day, which is entirely not needed.
Most "download managers" remain blocked. Please use the "normal" means of downloading my files. No user name and password is required to do so. If such information is requested, it could be due to the use of a download manager.
Access by "page editors" are not authorized. I hope the reasons are obvious.
When a "bad" robot hits, I will still immediately get a report via E-Mail and will selectively disable IP addresses instead of automatically banning them.

I appreciate everyone's feedback while I fine tune the domain to provide everyone rapid content while not alienating others.

 

Hi Sig - Thanks ever for obtaining the information you posted. It explains a lot. However, I have never been guilty of specific issues outlined and I am not from one of the banned countries. However, I may well be using an IP that was previously used by someone else or that my IP has been stolen. I am going to do a test with a few people who have the same server I do and see if they receive the same message. If I cannot access the Black Viper site, so be it!! At least the discussion on this topic has been informativel.

Thanks Root, shall give it another try to access the site.

 

Just tried the Black Viper site again and this time it came in .... Now I can learn all about tweaking WinXP ... I think!! Thanks everyone for being so helpful - thumbs up!!

 

Peaches you might give this site a look,it has a lot of xp tips and tricks


http://is-it-true.org/nt/xp/index.shtml