7 ms·

Site blocks VPN users.

by calmworm 3mo ago

deadbabe 3mo ago
This is why you should self host your VPN.
- retired 3mo ago
  Does that not defeat the anonymity aspect?
  - deadbabe 3mo ago
    VPNs even from big public providers have not been a reliable way to protect anonymity for a while now. Use VPNs for cryptographic security and circumventing region control.
  - DANmode 3mo ago
    You mean pseudo anonymity, from advertisers mostly?
- Retr0id 3mo ago
  But where do you self-host it? Most sites that block VPNs also block VPSes
ErroneousBosh 3mo ago
Many of us only like legitimate users, and therefore block VPNs.
- lxgr 3mo ago
  What makes a VPN user inherently “illegitimate” in your view?
  - mschuster91 3mo ago
    The problem is the whack-a-mole game with hackers and script kiddies. It used to be the case that banning known colo ASNs was enough to get rid of nuisance by STROs, then there was a flood of hacked routers being used for DDoS that was really annoying to get rid of, and then came "residential IP" VPNs and commercial VPNs, both of which get routinely abused by AI scrapers and frankly, the AI scrapers are a worse enemy than the skiddies of 10 years ago. They ruin everything. And you as a site operator can't really tell apart skiddies, griefers, AI scrapers and legitimate users apart any more.
    - deadbabe 3mo ago
      What are they doing exactly?
      - mschuster91 3mo ago
        In what I have seen personally, creating absurdly more load by hitting "expensive" pages that no normal user would ever click in that frequency. The AI scraper bots are really, really dumb - they just follow everything that looks like a link. Another particularly annoying thing was when spam bots got brainy enough (if I were to guess with AI?) that managed to bypass our maths captcha. That one really still pisses me off because I don't like to torture users or having to use GDPR-violating services.
    - therein 3mo ago
      Almost as if you shouldn't be banning users because of their IP unless that IP specifically has openly attacked you. Or I guess you can just DENY ALL.
      - ErroneousBosh 3mo ago
        If all the traffic you see from a particular netblock is people posting hate speech, you're probably not losing much by dropping everything from that whole range.
      - mschuster91 3mo ago
  - ErroneousBosh 3mo ago
    They're using a VPN. I've never seen anyone using a VPN for anything other than disruptive behaviour. I had to block vast swathes of mobile broadband providers in a certain warlike Middle Eastern country because if I didn't I'd have anywhere from 100 to 1000 new users every single morning who'd all posted hate speech that won't post here for fear of triggering the right-wing apologists. Now they just do that over VPNs, which makes keeping them out all the more difficult.
- DocTomoe 3mo ago
  Well, you can just give me a list of the domains you operate, and I can put them in the network blacklist.
Xkeeper 3mo ago
Unfortunately true. I wrote about it early last year here: https://blog.xkeeper.net/uncategorized/tcrf-has-been-getting-ddosed/ https://blog.xkeeper.net/uncategorized/tcrf-has-been-getting... The story has not changed much. Every so often I will remove most of the blocks put in place, and within a few hours I'm back to having to block them. Many of the cheaper VPNs are also hosted on AWS / Google Cloud / Azure (or other cloud providers), which are also unilaterally blocked. I would much prefer we did not have to do this, but it is what it is.

Site blocks VPN users.

deadbabe 3mo ago

This is why you should self host your VPN.

retired 3mo ago
Does that not defeat the anonymity aspect?
- deadbabe 3mo ago
  VPNs even from big public providers have not been a reliable way to protect anonymity for a while now. Use VPNs for cryptographic security and circumventing region control.
- DANmode 3mo ago
  You mean pseudo anonymity, from advertisers mostly?
Retr0id 3mo ago
But where do you self-host it? Most sites that block VPNs also block VPSes

ErroneousBosh 3mo ago

Many of us only like legitimate users, and therefore block VPNs.

lxgr 3mo ago
What makes a VPN user inherently “illegitimate” in your view?
- mschuster91 3mo ago
  The problem is the whack-a-mole game with hackers and script kiddies. It used to be the case that banning known colo ASNs was enough to get rid of nuisance by STROs, then there was a flood of hacked routers being used for DDoS that was really annoying to get rid of, and then came "residential IP" VPNs and commercial VPNs, both of which get routinely abused by AI scrapers and frankly, the AI scrapers are a worse enemy than the skiddies of 10 years ago. They ruin everything. And you as a site operator can't really tell apart skiddies, griefers, AI scrapers and legitimate users apart any more.
  - deadbabe 3mo ago
    What are they doing exactly?
    - mschuster91 3mo ago
      In what I have seen personally, creating absurdly more load by hitting "expensive" pages that no normal user would ever click in that frequency. The AI scraper bots are really, really dumb - they just follow everything that looks like a link. Another particularly annoying thing was when spam bots got brainy enough (if I were to guess with AI?) that managed to bypass our maths captcha. That one really still pisses me off because I don't like to torture users or having to use GDPR-violating services.
  - therein 3mo ago
    Almost as if you shouldn't be banning users because of their IP unless that IP specifically has openly attacked you. Or I guess you can just DENY ALL.
    - ErroneousBosh 3mo ago
      If all the traffic you see from a particular netblock is people posting hate speech, you're probably not losing much by dropping everything from that whole range.
    - mschuster91 3mo ago
- ErroneousBosh 3mo ago
  They're using a VPN. I've never seen anyone using a VPN for anything other than disruptive behaviour. I had to block vast swathes of mobile broadband providers in a certain warlike Middle Eastern country because if I didn't I'd have anywhere from 100 to 1000 new users every single morning who'd all posted hate speech that won't post here for fear of triggering the right-wing apologists. Now they just do that over VPNs, which makes keeping them out all the more difficult.
DocTomoe 3mo ago
Well, you can just give me a list of the domains you operate, and I can put them in the network blacklist.

Xkeeper 3mo ago

Unfortunately true. I wrote about it early last year here: https://blog.xkeeper.net/uncategorized/tcrf-has-been-getting-ddosed/ https://blog.xkeeper.net/uncategorized/tcrf-has-been-getting... The story has not changed much. Every so often I will remove most of the blocks put in place, and within a few hours I'm back to having to block them. Many of the cheaper VPNs are also hosted on AWS / Google Cloud / Azure (or other cloud providers), which are also unilaterally blocked. I would much prefer we did not have to do this, but it is what it is.