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Originally posted by Peter
My IP was blocked too. Thanks for fixing it right away Rich.
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Well, I'm kind of the guy that created the problem by implementing a Spam Control hack to the board. I've still got a feature that disallows folks from posting URL's to known SPAM sites but I turned off IP blocking. I've contacted the guy who wrote the code for the Spam Control hack and, as soon as he implements a "whitelist" feature, I'm going to put it back up. Prior to that time, I'll make sure to get the IP's of users so we can whitlist them into the board. I think it will actually improve performance for all because we'll be blocking more malicious bots coming our way.
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What I read said it's possible that my computer's been "zombified", or hacked into by a virus that sends spam from it. It said comcast users have a problem with this.
http://news.com.com/2102-1034_3-5218178.html
I was able to access the forum using a proxy but the server would still not let me post any thing. Of the proxies on the list few work and many gave me an IP that was blocked too. Last night I turned of my router and modem hoping that would work but by then you had fixed it.
I ran a virus scan on my computer and deleted some files but I dont know if the other problem is solved. Some of the websites recommended downloading a Firewall. I already have one from Windows do I need another?
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It's possible that your computer was "taken over" but improbable that it's the issue. If it was, then getting the Zombie code off your system doesn't help you in terms of the status of your IP. As noted above, the major ISP's have many IP's that are blacklisted. They basically have to clean house until those IP's are taken down. It doesn't help that, with your modem, you are probably connecting via DHCP (Dynyamic Host Control Protocol) and you receive a different IP every time you log in among a pool of IP's that the ISP owns. My guess is that they had a person spamming (or a zombified computer) that used an IP or IP's in their pool. Again, your best bet is to hold your ISP's feet to the fire. You might be able to insist that they assign a "clean" static IP to you. That is, ask them for an IP that is not on the list and that it not change when you log in. They might not be able to do so but it doesn't hurt to ask.
It's not my intent to create unnecessary work for folks but this is of some benefit to you guys to
know that you are connecting to the Internet with IP's that are considered spam. It might well prevent others from receiving e-mail from you. There is only one ISP that services military families that live in base housing in Okinawa called Mediatti. It is blacklisted by a ton of e-mail servers and I used to have a problem with my family not receiving any e-mail from me because of that. Thankfully, I live off base now and connect via a 100MBps fiber connection to the Internet that has a dedicated IP.