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Ban me at the IP level if you don't like me

(boston.conman.org)
597 points classichasclass | 13 comments | 25 Aug 25 04:23 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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lwansbrough ◴[25 Aug 25 05:55 UTC] No.45010657[source]▶
We solved a lot of our problems by blocking all Chinese ASNs. Admittedly, not the friendliest solution, but there were so many issues originating from Chinese clients that it was easier to just ban the entire country.

It's not like we can capitalize on commerce in China anyway, so I think it's a fairly pragmatic approach.

replies(6): >>45010748 #>>45010787 #>>45010871 #>>45011590 #>>45011656 #>>45011732 #
lxgr ◴[25 Aug 25 06:10 UTC] No.45010748[source]▶
Why stop there? Just block all non-US IPs!

If it works for my health insurance company, essentially all streaming services (including not even being able to cancel service from abroad), and many banks, it’ll work for you as well.

Surely bad actors wouldn’t use VPNs or botnets, and your customers never travel abroad?

replies(11): >>45010774 #>>45010777 #>>45010786 #>>45010861 #>>45010879 #>>45010925 #>>45011206 #>>45011711 #>>45012110 #>>45013192 #>>45025318 #
1. lwansbrough ◴[25 Aug 25 06:16 UTC] No.45010774[source]▶
Don't care, works fine for us.
replies(2): >>45010840 #>>45014117 #
2. yupyupyups ◴[25 Aug 25 06:26 UTC] No.45010840[source]▶
And that's perfectly fine. Nothing is completely bulletproof anyway. If you manage to get rid of 90% of the problem then that's a good thing.
replies(2): >>45010870 #>>45011686 #
3. lxgr ◴[25 Aug 25 06:31 UTC] No.45010870[source]▶
And if your competitor manages to do so without annoying the part of their customer base that occasionally leaves the country, everybody wins!
replies(1): >>45011337 #
4. yupyupyups ◴[25 Aug 25 07:47 UTC] No.45011337{3}[source]▶
Fair point, that's something to consider.
5. ruszki ◴[25 Aug 25 08:44 UTC] No.45011686[source]▶
Okay, but this causes me about 90% of my major annoyances. Seriously. It’s almost always these stupid country restrictions.

I was in UK. I wanted to buy a movie ticket there. Fuck me, because I have an Austrian ip address, because modern mobile backends pass your traffic through your home mobile operator. So I tried to use a VPN. Fuck me, VPN endpoints are blocked also.

I wanted to buy a Belgian train ticket still from home. Cloudflare fuck me, because I’m too suspicious as a foreigner. It broke their whole API access, which was used by their site.

I wanted to order something while I was in America at my friend’s place. Fuck me of course. Not just my IP was problematic, but my phone number too. And of course my bank card… and I just wanted to order a pizza.

The most annoying is when your fucking app is restricted to your stupid country, and I should use it because your app is a public transport app. Lovely.

And of course, there was that time when I moved to an other country… pointless country restrictions everywhere… they really helped.

I remember the times when the saying was that the checkout process should be as frictionless as possible. That sentiment is long gone.

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6. 42lux ◴[25 Aug 25 09:54 UTC] No.45012126{3}[source]▶
The vpn is probably your problem there mate.
replies(2): >>45014624 #>>45020190 #
7. sarchertech ◴[25 Aug 25 11:33 UTC] No.45012718{3}[source]▶
> I wanted to order something while I was in America at my friend’s place. Fuck me of course. Not just my IP was problematic, but my phone number too.

Your mobile provider was routing you through Austria while in the US?

replies(2): >>45013169 #>>45014647 #
8. nucleardog ◴[25 Aug 25 12:35 UTC] No.45013169{4}[source]▶
Not OP, but as far as I know that's how it works, yeah.

When I was in China, using a Chinese SIM had half the internet inaccessible (because China). As I was flying out I swapped my SIM back to my North American one... and even within China I had fully unrestricted (though expensive) access to the entire internet.

I looked into it at the time (now that I had access to non-Chinese internet sites!) and forgot the technical details, but seems that this was how the mobile network works by design. Your provider is responsible for your traffic.

9. Nemi ◴[25 Aug 25 14:15 UTC] No.45014117[source]▶
Worked great for us, but I had to turn it off. Why? Because the IP databases that the two services I was using are not accurate enough and some people in the US were being blocked as if they had a foreign IP address. It happened regularly enough I reluctantly had to turn it off and now I have to deal the non-stop hacking attempts on the website.

For the record, my website is a front end for a local-only business. Absolutely no reason for anyone outside the US to participate.

10. ruszki ◴[25 Aug 25 15:01 UTC] No.45014624{4}[source]▶
I don’t use VPN generally, only in specific cases. For example, when I want to reach Australian news. Because of course, as a non Australian, I couldn’t care about local news. Or when American pages rather ban Europe than they would tell who they sell my data to.
11. ruszki ◴[25 Aug 25 15:02 UTC] No.45014647{4}[source]▶
Yes, newer backends for 4G and 5G networks work exactly that way.
replies(1): >>45017853 #
12. lxgr ◴[25 Aug 25 19:23 UTC] No.45017853{5}[source]▶
Even 2G and 3G data roaming used to work that way.

If anything, the opposite behavior (i.e. getting a local or regional IP instead of one from your home network) is a relatively new development.

13. Dylan16807 ◴[25 Aug 25 22:58 UTC] No.45020190{4}[source]▶
They tried a VPN as a backup for one of those problems.

So no. It's not.