VPN issues with the forum

[Jon in Sweden]

Would it be possible to change the settings of the forum please, so that browsing with a VPN is permitted?

I lost a fairly long post today because I paused the VPN to access the board, read a little, then responded to a post. In the meantime, the VPN kicked back in, and the post I wrote was lost.

It's a little anachronistic to disallow VPNs, as many people use them now.

Is this possible to fix?

[Carlton green]

The topic has been covered before, unfortunately some folk maliciously use VPN systems and that gives the mods and support staff problems. As the site is free to use and those good folk provide their time for free it’s not unreasonable to ask users not to use VPN systems. Browsing only seems fair enough to me but where does one draw the line? I suggest at point where a facility becomes burdensome to our volunteers.

If you use the search function to look for posts by Slowster with the tla VPN in them then the issues might be clearer.

[the snail]

On mine you can open the vpn app and exclude this site/domain from the vpn. I suspect vpns are banned to stop people who have been banned from the site using them.

[Paulatic]

I use a VPN and it’s allowed me in all week without having to turn it off.
Loosing a written post before actually posting it has happened to me numerous times long before a VPN

[axel_knutt]

I use a VPN and it’s allowed me in all week without having to turn it off.
Loosing a written post before actually posting it has happened to me numerous times long before a VPN

I 'lost' a few when the forum timed out before I'd finished typing, but then I discovered that you can enter your password to log back in without losing it all.

[richardfm]

Would it be possible to change the settings of the forum please, so that browsing with a VPN is permitted?

I lost a fairly long post today because I paused the VPN to access the board, read a little, then responded to a post. In the meantime, the VPN kicked back in, and the post I wrote was lost.

It's a little anachronistic to disallow VPNs, as many people use them now.

Is this possible to fix?

Losing your post was probably because your network connection changed, not because of the VPN.
If you started the post on your phone in the house with a WiFi connection and then left the house and got a mobile connection the same thing may well gave happened.

[francovendee]

I lost all access to the forum on my laptop but it was OK on the phone.
Help on here identified the VPN being the cause.

I now turn VPN off when visiting this forum.
No real problem but it's the only forum I visit that does this.

[axel_knutt]

No real problem but it's the only forum I visit that does this.

I had aggro with all sorts of stuff when I tried a VPN, including Lloyds bank asking me to sign a tax declaration confirming that I'm not banking offshore.

[slowcyclist]

I use a VPN and it’s allowed me in all week without having to turn it off.
Loosing a written post before actually posting it has happened to me numerous times long before a VPN

Indeed, there are many ways to workaround not losing a post client side rather than asking the admins/server to change lol. What is a much bigger problem for me is how cloudflare has taken over the captcha market in just a couple of years. The problem is my internet uses shared IPs and often they are blacklisted by cloudflare leaving me locked out of the forum in question in lots of cases even though I didn't do anything wrong.

I often have internet dropouts and stuff like that due to mobile internet so know to copy and paste a lengthy post to a temporary file before posting. Mostly I remember anyway. It is better to edit a long post in your preferred editor anyway.

Aside from that it seems more appropriate to look at their VPN setup rather than expecting the forum to change for them. In the coding world this is an X-Y problem.

[mjr]

The topic has been covered before, unfortunately some folk maliciously use VPN systems and that gives the mods and support staff problems. As the site is free to use and those good folk provide their time for free it’s not unreasonable to ask users not to use VPN systems.

Why is it considered reasonable to ban VPNs but not broadband ISPs that are used by malicious folk and have support/abuse desks at least as unhelpful as any VPN company?

[slowster]

Why is it considered reasonable to ban VPNs but not broadband ISPs that are used by malicious folk and have support/abuse desks at least as unhelpful as any VPN company?

99% of the attempts made to post spam on the forum come from VPN addresses. Not all VPNs are blocked. VPN IP addresses are blocked reactively when an attempt is made to post spam using that IP range.

It is not completely effective (no security system ever is), and today I have had to deal with two attempts to post spam. Nevertheless, it has dramatically reduced the number of attempts to post spam etc. that we receive.

Mainstream ISPs do not pose the same problem, and there would be no benefit in treating them like VPN ISPs, with the exception of two very large US ISPs which are the source of unusually large amounts of spam for a mainstream ISP, and many of whose IP addresses have consequently been blocked.

[mjr]

Mainstream ISPs do not pose the same problem, and there would be no benefit in treating them like VPN ISPs, with the exception of two very large US ISPs which are the source of unusually large amounts of spam for a mainstream ISP, and many of whose IP addresses have consequently been blocked.

But not their whole ranges? It really sounds like a two-tier system and I don't understand this bias against VPN ISPs, rather than spam-friendly ISPs in general.

It would probably also help tourers to know some VPN ISPs that can be used, too.

[slowster]

But not their whole ranges?

It is a reactive and selective approach. In any case, it is usually not possible to readily identify all the IP addresses of a particular ISP or VPN. Even if we could do so, blocking them all is unikely to be necessary or proportionate.

It really sounds like a two-tier system and I don't understand this bias against VPN ISPs, rather than spam-friendly ISPs in general.

There are no "spam-friendly ISPs in general"; 99% of spam comes from VPN ISPs.

It would probably also help tourers to know some VPN ISPs that can be used, too.

In that situation we would advise an individual affected to use the Contact Us page to send us a message.

[Jdsk]

Thanks for all of the work on our behalf.

Jonathan

[hufty]

Could I ask the admins please to soften the message that comes up when rejecting a VPN connection, as some of us are delicate flowers? I would reverse the sentence order and just get rid of the phrase "You have been permanently banned from this board".