The Back Alley Archives

Well, I guess I've been banned forever. Again without notice or warning. I'd post the vBulletin message if I knew how. Message basically said reason:apexgator, date ban will be lifted:never. Still think it's chickenshit that they did that without provocation or providing a reason.
Guess they have ways of comparing IP addy's even on Tor. Either that or Bill raised the suspicion.

But you'll never be banned from my heart, apex.

But you'll never be banned from my heart, apex.

[img]{SMILIES_PATH}/emot-awesome.gif[/img]


:wub:

why? what happened?

why? what happened?

Either Tor didn't work properly to mask me or Bill ratted me out.

apex...do a "print screen", then paste into Microsoft Paint or any other image viewer, then crop out the relevant image, copy and paste into a new image and save.

Guess they have ways of comparing IP addy's even on Tor. Either that or Bill raised the suspicion.

Did you ever post using Tor before? It's possible (but not likely) that Tor connected you with the same proxy server.

For what it's worth, my latest alias, Gator_Goo, was banned for "Using IP mask."

I had never posted with it, only registered. That means they're screening new members. It's possible they have some kind of program that alerts them whenever a new member joins up using a proxy.

I'll have to look at this further to find a solution.

Guess they have ways of comparing IP addy's even on Tor. Either that or Bill raised the suspicion.

Did you ever post using Tor before? It's possible (but not likely) that Tor connected you with the same proxy server.

I'm sure that's what happened but I'm still suspicious of Bill

Yeah, I am thinking Bill said something to the wrong person.

As for the IP mask detection, I have determined that it is possible to have a script which detects it, but it's difficult to implement and in most cases it just doesn't let the user register or post.

I think it's far more likely that Growl and/or Shane are looking at new users (especially those with suspicious names) and checking the IPs to see if they match up to a known proxy.

What screen name were you using, apex?

^^^ that would be naturalgator this time. A very unnassuming name.

Don't forget about those tracking cookies too.

^^^ that would be naturalgator this time. A very unnassuming name.

Duh...I should have known...you bumped up my kid's thread and said it was to try and get it into the hof...shoulda known...but I didn't so that's good!

^^^ I do what I can to help out my peeps.

i knew naturalgator was one of us...anybody with less than 40 posts is suspicious to me.. [img]{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lmao.gif[/img]

Don't forget about those tracking cookies too.

I always clear all the cookies from GatorCountry before I login as a new user. In fact, I can't log out of a banned identity without doing so.

I suggest we all lay low for a while. In the meantime, I will be doing some more research into how they can tell if you're masking your IP. If the method they use is the one I suspect, it may be circumvented by merely disabling javascript. But I'm not sure. I gotta check.

DocZ = super slueth

Don't forget about those tracking cookies too.

I always clear all the cookies from GatorCountry before I login as a new user. In fact, I can't log out of a banned identity without doing so.

I suggest we all lay low for a while. In the meantime, I will be doing some more research into how they can tell if you're masking your IP. If the method they use is the one I suspect, it may be circumvented by merely disabling javascript. But I'm not sure. I gotta check.

10-4, Doc. Consider looking at the plugins available on http://www.vbulletin.org. I've noticed them using several of these plugins, including the casino, stats, and others. I can get any of those plugins for you if you want to look at the code behind them.

^^^ Yeah, that's one of the things I want to do. I don't think looking at the code will help me, as I'm no code monkey, especially when it comes to modern stuff like PHP, Java and the like.

I was a CS major in college, so I can write a few basic programs in Pascal (and C, C++ to some extent), but the technology left me behind when I went to law school.

I base my knowledge on a few things I have read. There is a plugin for PHPBB 2 that detects IP masking; there's gotta be one for vBulletin, too. I'm hoping there's one for this board, PHPBB3, that I can experiment with.

:geeksarefreaks:

[img]{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lmao.gif[/img] i'll leave this sleuthing to the pro's