CloudFlair Bans on Proboard Forums.

[?anna?]

Forum URL: gibbysplace.freeforums.net/forum




This is all I see when I try to log in here from my home PC. I'm at an internet cafe now, which apparently isn't affected.

 I think I know who is behind the hacker attack and I was foolishly a member of his lonely forum. He was also an ex Global Mod at Gibby's, if my suspicions are correct. Is it possible for any of you guys to reverse the hacker attack fake ban here and elsewhere that the hacker imposed on my PC at home? The pb abuse center confirms that my home PC IP is not banned here, but the hacker apparently got into my PC for the fake ban. Your help is greatly appreciated.

[Brian]

Hi, ?anna?.

There is no hacker attack or anything of the sort. Your IP was banned by our servers for making too many requests to the forum within a short time span.

I unbanned your IP from our servers earlier this morning.

[?anna?]

I made no requests from any servers and wasn't online here at all in the last week or so? This is really strange. I put up a handfull of posts went to bed for 6 hours and noticed I was "banned" when I tried to log in. Could someone have misused by home PC IP to do this? Or is there a disturbance in my home PC? Hackers are getting more clever than ever. My PC has slowed down too-that might be the problem. This never happened before. 

[Oliver]

Jun 17, 2014 9:03:24 GMT -8 ?anna? said:

I made no requests from any servers and wasn't online here at all in the last week or so? This is really strange. I put up a handfull of posts went to bed for 6 hours and noticed I was "banned" when I tried to log in. Could someone have misused by home PC IP to do this? Or is there a disturbance in my home PC? Hackers are getting more clever than ever. This never happened before. 

Did you download anything he gave you? The only way I could see this happening is via a RAT (Remote Administration Tool) allowing the hacker full access to your PC, if you run off a public network/VPN allowing someone to get banned from that network also getting you banned or if someone in your home had access to your PC getting you banned.

[CheatAreZee]

It's worth noting that a request to the server just means a general connection to the server. But in order to be flagged by the system, there would have been many requests to the server in a very short amount of time.

Just as some examples of what we're talking about, if you were to rapidly click the Like button on a single post to rapidly like and unlike a post constantly, hold the F5 key down on your keyboard to rapidly refresh a page, or make multiple posts at the same time, these would be a few common examples of what would cause an automatic system ban. I have high doubts it's hacker related

[blc]

Jun 17, 2014 9:21:04 GMT -8 CheatAreZee said:

It's worth noting that a request to the server just means a general connection to the server. But in order to be flagged by the system, there would have been many requests to the server in a very short amount of time.

Just as some examples of what we're talking about, if you were to rapidly click the Like button on a single post to rapidly like and unlike a post constantly, hold the F5 key down on your keyboard to rapidly refresh a page, or make multiple posts at the same time, these would be a few common examples of what would cause an automatic system ban. I have high doubts it's hacker related

Ricky, I have a question that pertains to all this. Anna was still able to log in and post at my site, even though she was 'banned; from several other pb sites. If your server banned her wouldn't that cover all pb sites?

[CheatAreZee]

Jun 17, 2014 9:24:44 GMT -8 blc said:

Jun 17, 2014 9:21:04 GMT -8 CheatAreZee said:

It's worth noting that a request to the server just means a general connection to the server. But in order to be flagged by the system, there would have been many requests to the server in a very short amount of time.

Just as some examples of what we're talking about, if you were to rapidly click the Like button on a single post to rapidly like and unlike a post constantly, hold the F5 key down on your keyboard to rapidly refresh a page, or make multiple posts at the same time, these would be a few common examples of what would cause an automatic system ban. I have high doubts it's hacker related

Ricky, I have a question that pertains to all this. Anna was still able to log in and post at my site, even though she was 'banned; from several other pb sites. If your server banned her wouldn't that cover all pb sites?

Yes, including the support forum here. If she was able to login and post on your forum while her home IP was banned, she was likely posting with a different IP that is not banned, such as an internet cafe that she posted with originally in this topic

[blc]

Jun 17, 2014 9:29:15 GMT -8 CheatAreZee said:

Jun 17, 2014 9:24:44 GMT -8 blc said:

Ricky, I have a question that pertains to all this. Anna was still able to log in and post at my site, even though she was 'banned; from several other pb sites. If your server banned her wouldn't that cover all pb sites?

Yes, including the support forum here. If she was able to login and post on your forum while her home IP was banned, she was likely posting with a different IP that is not banned, such as an internet cafe that she posted with originally in this topic

No, said she was still able to log in to my site, but not others and later went to the cafe.

[CheatAreZee]

Would have been by luck then; The 1006 ban is a complete server ban, so she shouldn't have been able to access anywhere.

[blc]

Jun 17, 2014 9:36:43 GMT -8 CheatAreZee said:

Would have been by luck then; The 1006 ban is a complete server ban, so she shouldn't have been able to access anywhere.

I just checked and she was pm'ing me 4 hours ago about the problem, and left a message in the shout 2 hours ago, and then went to the cafe and posted here.

Now, I have a domain but that wouldn't make a difference would it?

[CheatAreZee]

Actually, if you are using a custom domain name, that would indeed be the cause. If she attempted to visit your forum with the original ProBoards URL the message would have came up. But custom domains are handled a little differently in that area, so the ban wouldn't be reflected with that.

[blc]

Jun 17, 2014 9:48:42 GMT -8 CheatAreZee said:

Actually, if you are using a custom domain name, that would indeed be the cause. If she attempted to visit your forum with the original ProBoards URL the message would have came up. But custom domains are handled a little differently in that area, so the ban wouldn't be reflected with that.

That is probably it then. I understand that this is an anti spam feature, but what kind of time frame is it based on, like 10 posts in a minute or something? I get the post spam thing but not the like thing. I don't go around liking a ton of posts, but what if you were an admin that did that? Theoretically you could get yourself banned right? Any way to not include likes in that?

This actually makes me wonder about posts, likes and chess moves. As we add more plug ins to our sites does this risk rise? Sorry for all the questions but now I'm curious.

[Former Member]

Just wondering if having the same IP address as another member or guest on proboards could possibly have caused her ban? As in someone with the same IP address got themselves banned automatically and thus it affected her account, too, which would explain how she was making forum requests while not being online for that week. This isn't a question I personally want answered, just a possible reason for the ban's reason to take into consideration if Ricky does say it is possible

[CheatAreZee]

The time frame is extremely small; it's a matter of seconds. Just as an example, if you hold down the F5 key on your keyboard, this causes multiple requests in under 2 seconds which is un-natural and would cause the flag to occur.

Regular browsing and posting scenarios over the course of minutes wouldn't cause a flag

Edit: Just saw ₪» ⅀ ƪ Ƒ «₪'s post, if multiple people share an IP address and are members of the same forum, it's possible this could cause a flag if two people happen to do similar repeated requests at the same time.

[Michael]

In order to trigger the automatic block you would have to be making 10+ requests a second, not 10 requests in a min!