[2018-02-01] Tor connections to BLF will be blocked

Blocking tor is okay with me.

I remember Simon from convoy once mentioned while answering to a question I made that he has trouble accessing blf, so I guess that is the only case I can think of that will affect the forum, people from China, representatives of the companies that interact with the users, etc

Get some feedback from our Chinese compatriots first they are the ones dealing with a national firewall. If they do access BLF through TOR you would be hard pressed to shut them out. Dammed if you do Dammed if you dont. Normal users dont need to hide behind TOR when accessing a flashlight site… JUST SAYING

Actually, quite the opposite. TOR is NOT recommended for torrents. In fact, it’s actively discouraged.

Too much traffic bouncing back’n’forth for each little packet, and each little packet bounces through several layers (servers, etc.) to really scramble someone’s tracks. All that activity is almost as bad as trying to watch a video over TOR.

Plus, there are security holes doing so, and you bug everyone else on TOR. See https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en and especially item b.

The Truly Suave™ can get by just fine with a VPN.

Hell, even NordVPN was advertising on teevee commercials here.

Anyhoo, banning TOR likely won’t stop that kind of jackassery that was going on. They may just get clued in and use a VPN instead.

But if it’s just one or two chimps doing so, hey, anything to keep the animals in their cages can be a Good Thing.

This is my understanding also.

I find it amazing that people would go to that extend to troll in this forum… You might think that using VPN or switching to mobile data would be enough… but TOR?

Put down the hammer SB!

Blocking Tor is okay with me, but I don’t think it’ll stop trolls from using VPNs.

Put down the keyboard, Jan!

JAN HAMMER

I use a VPN. I have to disable it when I want to stream videos on Netflix. I’d be happy to disable it here as well.

Thanks for the reply Glenn. For now I’m only considering the possibility of blocking Tor, not VPNs.

If it comes down to blocking VPN’s, I have no problem doing it. Netflix does. I’m sure other websites do it as well.

Netflix you can get around easily. People here buy the USA Netflix accounts and use a VPN to stream so they get better movies lol. Also works with Stan and HBO.
I some times use a VPN but I usually game at home and it throws of my ping.

VPNs are useful for many reasons…

I once got a DMCA notice from my ISP that I had DLed a video (no named vid, just a nebulous accusation without substance)
and they said I could contact the accuser for more info, butt that would expose me to more scrutiny and possible remuneration charges.

Well, WTF, no wonder ppl use anonymizers to protect themselves from splattergun tactics with no evidence or details.

Nah, that’s now getting into the realm of silly. Baby and bathwater…

There’s no way to tell if certain traffic in itself is coming through a VPN. The only way to tell is by knowing which blocks of IP addies are associated with a particular VPN, and blocking them. It’s just a big game of whack-a-mole.

Netflix and Hulu are doing it for $$$. People in countries where NF/H doesn’t offer much, just want to watch <insert name of popular show> like the rest of the world does.

So as soon as they blacklist one block of IPAs, the VPN will rotate its shield harmonics with new IPAs and then the cycle restarts.

But then there are corporate VPNs which are… “rented”?… from 3rd-party VPN providers. Block them, and you could be blocking lots of legitimate users. I once had to block akamai in toto for lots of nasty nasty things they were hosting (spammers, beacons, malware, you name it), but legitimate companies like Crutchfield were using akamai as a hosting service, so their website came out like garbage (no pix, no CSS, nothing). I had to try to selectively distinguish between good and bad akamai stuff. To this day, their name still skeeves me.

Anyway, unless wholesale slashing’n’burning becomes absolutely necessary, I doubt blocking VPNs would be a solution.

Build a 12’ wall, and someone’ll just build a 13’ ladder. (just know first how many legit users that wall will keep out.)

Here ya go… https://www.howtogeek.com/239616/how-to-watch-netflix-hulu-and-more-through-a-vpn-without-being-blocked/

Were are behind you SB!

Yep, just shut up, implicitly admit guilt (“silence equals consent”), or protest and paint a big bullseye on your back.

Actually, I got like 5-6 of those, for a chick-flick, stand-up comedy, other stuff I never even heard of. So even with details, it ain’t much better.

And these accusations come sometimes months after the purported offense, when you can’t possibly remember that you were out that weekend, had your ’puter in pieces upgrading the cpu, etc.

So unless someone took the 20min to crack my wifi password, everything I do goes through the vpn, just in case.

i’m in asia( SEA), and im cool with not using TOR

My house has had like 6 of those letters. Thus we got a VPN.

Best excuse is. Some one was stealing your WiFi they cant prove it isn’t true.

Yea Aussie netflix is crap! lol

Can I quote you. :slight_smile: