Forbidden

[Modern Times]

This is surely just a temporary situation, so as they say here, "keep calm and carry on"

[xr_a_y]

With regional IP block, you sure you are preventing more hackers than normal users?

Good point ! hackers can very easily use attacking facilities from various region of the world...

By the way, from this canadian ip 51.222.29.xxx, I cannot access either (Québec).

[Joost Buijs]

This is surely just a temporary situation, so as they say here, "keep calm and carry on"

A couple of months back the same thing happened, the forum was unreachable from most parts of the world for almost a week.
It is very annoying that the hosting provider just does this without notifying us and giving zero information about what is going on and what to expect.

Maybe they were DDoS'ed or something like this, this is a common problem nowadays, but it is not a good solution to block 90% of the world from reaching the forum.

Why they still don't use SSL is a riddle too, nowadays with Let' s Encrypt it doesn't cost you a single penny.

Maybe it is time to think about moving the forum to another host.

[xr_a_y]

This is surely just a temporary situation, so as they say here, "keep calm and carry on"

A couple of months back the same thing happened, the forum was unreachable from most parts of the world for almost a week.
It is very annoying that the hosting provider just does this without notifying us and giving zero information about what is going on and what to expect.

Maybe they were DDoS'ed or something like this, this is a common problem nowadays, but it is not a good solution to block 90% of the world from reaching the forum.

Why they still don't use SSL is a riddle too, nowadays with Let' s Encrypt it doesn't cost you a single penny.

Maybe it is time to think about moving the forum to another host.

A fail2ban approach on a DDoS won't block ip by range, only some/many ip of the attakers for a medium amount of time. Don't understand the strategiy of blocking ip range ....

[Ras]

I can also only log in using a proxy that pretends to be in the US. Login from Germany fails.

Folks, this IP based banning is outright stupid. It does not stop hackers, rather regular users. And no, whitelisting IPs is not an option either because as anyone should know, consumer contracts have a forced 24h disconnect in many parts of the world so that the IP isn't static.

Instead of doing this security snakeoil, finally slapping Let's Encrypt (it's free!) on the forum is long overdue. Anyone can read the login passwords over http, you know. Any hotspot or hotel operator for example. This is 2020!

And if really necessary, a session based captcha would also be acceptable.

[mclane]

This is surely just a temporary situation, so as they say here, "keep calm and carry on"

A couple of months back the same thing happened, the forum was unreachable from most parts of the world for almost a week.
It is very annoying that the hosting provider just does this without notifying us and giving zero information about what is going on and what to expect.

Maybe they were DDoS'ed or something like this, this is a common problem nowadays, but it is not a good solution to block 90% of the world from reaching the forum.

Why they still don't use SSL is a riddle too, nowadays with Let' s Encrypt it doesn't cost you a single penny.

Maybe it is time to think about moving the forum to another host.

Yes exactly. I wish we could be somewhere else in public and not hidden

[mclane]

I can also only log in using a proxy that pretends to be in the US. Login from Germany fails.

Folks, this IP based banning is outright stupid. It does not stop hackers, rather regular users. And no, whitelisting IPs is not an option either because as anyone should know, consumer contracts have a forced 24h disconnect in many parts of the world so that the IP isn't static.

Instead of doing this security snakeoil, finally slapping Let's Encrypt (it's free!) on the forum is long overdue. Anyone can read the login passwords over http, you know. Any hotspot or hotel operator for example. This is 2020!

And if really necessary, a session based captcha would also be acceptable.

Exactly. It’s 2020 and not 1990.

[David Carteau]

Access seems to be back this morning (at least from France) !
Welcome back all forum members

Note : If it can be useful for others, that's how I was able to read posts during the "geo-blocking" : go to google web site, search for 'talkchess', and then click on "translate" just on the right of each result (I don't know if this feature is present if you are recognized as an english speaker).

[shogi4fun]

Access seems to be back this morning (at least from France) !

Germany is also back

[gerhard]

.... Not here ... southern germany still forbidden