AirVPN servers blacklisted via iblocklist.com

[skxBMrYsxlli 9]

http://tbg.iblocklist.com/

 

"Primary Threats"

 

Leaseweb/anti-p2p activity:108.59.8.142-108.59.8.142

 

Other AirVPN exit nodes appear to be blacklisted as well.

 

I would prefer not to contact TBG directly for anonymity reasons. Can AirVPN staff get in touch with TBG to resolve this?

[6501166996442015 35]

Came here to post about this. The Heze server has been blacklisted everywhere, from IRC to small time forums to even random Korean tech company websites. 

[LBDude 3]

I tried to register at FedoraForum.org today and was denied because "I am a known spammer" (their words, not mine). Now, at the time I was running OpenVPN on my router connected through Heze and forgot that was the case.   I challenged the denial and received an email back stating the I should check {the Heze ip address} with StopForumSpam.com for information as to why I was blacklisted.

 

I have tried that without success.  So, I really don't know what StopForumSpam has in its database.  Although on the "Contact/Removal" page it states: Your public IP address {Heze ip address} is in our database.   It goes on to say "Don't panic - Really. In no way are you personally being accused of being a spammer. An entry was merely reported to our database. The reasons are infinite, but whatever the reason was, we cannot tell you for sure."  I disagree - I was PERSONALLY denied access to the forum and if you can't tell me "for sure" then get it out of your database.

 

So FedoraForum will not let me register because I have been convicted of the 'pre-crime' of spamming by the 'pre-cogs' at StopForumSpam.com and StopForumSpam.com can't tell me for sure why I have been flagged.   This is the "Ray Kelly" model of Forum Administration - - "Stop-and-frisk" the dark-skinned guy in the hoodie because..... well, just in case.

 

Is there any active opposition to this style of Forum Administration?   I have encountered it several times and would like to join in opposition.  I petitioned to end "stop-and-frisk" and I can at least do the same here.

 

Note:  normally I do not register with forums etc while connected to the VPN and will go ahead a register with different userID etc. from my unprotected IP.

[smock 0]

I'm anxious to hear about any updates to this situation. My AirVPN subscription expires shortly, and this blacklist issue will definitely affect my decision about resubscribing.

[6501166996442015 35]

Bump, staff please respond

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

I don't quite understand the ipfilter.dat blocklist for use in uTorrent from their site. Are all those entries blocked IP ranges?

[LBDude 3]

gigan3rd "I don't quite understand the ipfilter.dat blocklist for use in uTorrent from their site. Are all those entries blocked IP ranges?"

That is exactly right. In a peer-to-peer transaction, data from all of those IPs would be blocked.  In Windows, using that list in the 'PeerBlock' application, you would be blocking over 1 billion  addresses.  It has to adversely affect torrent throughput and because some number of IP addresses used by AirVPN are included in the database, it actually prevents connection to those AirVPN servers.  You would have to create an "allowed" or white list for the AirVPN servers and any other IPs you wanted to connect with.

In the past couple of months I have have encountered problems registering with forums when connected to the VPN. The forums seem to check with StopForumSpam.com which maintains a database similar to iblocklist.com.  So, I spend some $$ on a product and try to register with company's forum in order to post a couple of questions with the thousands of wise and friendly users - - only I can't register, because StopForumSpam.com states that I am a spammer, or using an IP recently used by other spammers.  Dealing with commercial ventures is probably easier because screwing up the customer's experience is bad for the bottom line.  With small forums, staffed by volunteers, finding the correct leverage is trickier. Generally, pointing out that I am not a spammer, they have very clear rules of acceptable behavior, and they have no actual basis to judge my behavior is enough to get registered.  

These forum administrators are using a very blunt tool that is not designed to be used on individuals.  On the day that I tried to register at FedoraForum there were about 100 users connected to Heze, based on the Stats page at AirVPN.  The forum admin. for FedoraForum later indicated that spam from that IP was a problem - 33 times during August and September of last year.  I don't know if that was 33 times for the single Heze address for FedoraForum or 33 times as reported by StopForumSpam for a block of addresses including Heze for the universe of internet sites, or some other possibility.
 

[myhomevpn 0]

i have been encountering similar issues. I cannot connect to any torrent nodes from any US servers while it was never a problem 3 months ago, this is an issue even if i stop PeerBlock or whitelist the ips so it's probably beyond just that.

It's usually working when i connect from a non US server but can affect speed.

 

Can the staff look into this?

[6501166996442015 35]

bump

[jgalt 1]

Yea, I'm afraid it's just going to get worse with the amount of spammers/criminals/etc that may give great VPN's like this a bad rap.  Even if you switched to another VPN provider, they would have the same issues.  People do stupid things when they have anonymity, but the sites like that forum place should run better spam filtering, not block the whole IP range.  I can understand if it's a DDOS.. but yea, it's getting harder and harder to even torrent things legally through AirVPN due to the exit point blocking.  I wish I had a good way of knowing which exit point to use instead of having to jump around until I find one that isn't blocked (most likely in a foreign country).

 

But yea, what do you want AirVPN to do?  They don't keep records of who "spammed" using their service.. that's the benefit of using their service.  So they can't really stop that person from doing it again to the forum you like, even if they unblock the IP.

 

I'm not even sure what the solution is..

[6501166996442015 35]

Yea, I'm afraid it's just going to get worse with the amount of spammers/criminals/etc that may give great VPN's like this a bad rap.  Even if you switched to another VPN provider, they would have the same issues.  People do stupid things when they have anonymity, but the sites like that forum place should run better spam filtering, not block the whole IP range.  I can understand if it's a DDOS.. but yea, it's getting harder and harder to even torrent things legally through AirVPN due to the exit point blocking.  I wish I had a good way of knowing which exit point to use instead of having to jump around until I find one that isn't blocked (most likely in a foreign country).

 

But yea, what do you want AirVPN to do?  They don't keep records of who "spammed" using their service.. that's the benefit of using their service.  So they can't really stop that person from doing it again to the forum you like, even if they unblock the IP.

 

I'm not even sure what the solution is..

 

The solution is for AirVPN to buy a new IP address for $2. But they won't even reply to this post. 

[Staff 9973]

But they won't even reply to this post. 

 

 

The solution is for AirVPN to buy a new IP address for $2. But they won't even reply to this post. 

 

Hello!

 

We have repeatedly replied in other threads and we tend to avoid duplicates. This is a forum used by the community and you must not expect that we always enter a debate, especially if we already answered in the past. We may do it and we may not. If you want an answer on some subject from us please open a ticket at your convenience.

 

That said, what you suggest is not a real solution, usually these block lists include entire datacenter IP ranges. What you're suggesting is to go back to full surveillance, with logging etc. and that's not what our service is aimed to. You can't claim to protect Net Neutrality, remain a mere conduit and at the same time monitor the users of your infrastructure. Anyway that would not solve the problem. As jgalt correctly wrote, the fault here is from the end service, not ours. If an abuse is perpetrated from any node of a datacenter, the maintainers of some blacklists add the whole datacenter IP range. The administrators of the services that implement such blacklists clearly prefer to be enemy of an open Internet than doing some effort to put in place more proper solutions. These administrators are the first persons to cry for Net Neutrality and freedom when their services are censored by third parties, but they are also acting exactly against the very same principles they invoke when they are harmed.

 

In any case, preserving Net Neutrality is much more important than complying to a bad behavior of some bad behaving service administrators. Contrarily to hypocritical administrators, we struggle to remain always coherent with our mission.

 

Kind regards