403/503 Forbidden errors! - Spam measures
Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2011 1:25 am
We run software designed to try filter out both spam and attempts to hack the website by evildoers. This software is extremely effective at doing this and we've seen huge drops in unsolicited advertisements getting through.
On occasion this software will accidentally trigger for legitimate users and you will be presented with a screen explaining what has happened and the ability to send us a report. Sending us the information allows us to configure the software to let you access the website. This is a rare occurrence and we've done as much as possible to prevent this happening but if it does please do send us on the information and bear with us as we fix the problem. Usually this will not take very much time and we'll reply back to you to let you know it has been resolved.
In addition this software preblocks several countries and providers where a high frequency of attack traffic originates. This has been necessary due to the scope and content of abuse that has come from them and the small amount of legitimate users we have there. These are not permanent bans or blocks and we will "whitelist" providers as requested by users using the form on the block page however to leave them unblocked by default would have a negative impact on the rest of the users on the site.
On occasion this software will accidentally trigger for legitimate users and you will be presented with a screen explaining what has happened and the ability to send us a report. Sending us the information allows us to configure the software to let you access the website. This is a rare occurrence and we've done as much as possible to prevent this happening but if it does please do send us on the information and bear with us as we fix the problem. Usually this will not take very much time and we'll reply back to you to let you know it has been resolved.
In addition this software preblocks several countries and providers where a high frequency of attack traffic originates. This has been necessary due to the scope and content of abuse that has come from them and the small amount of legitimate users we have there. These are not permanent bans or blocks and we will "whitelist" providers as requested by users using the form on the block page however to leave them unblocked by default would have a negative impact on the rest of the users on the site.