Suspicious ip

[hck]

I have been getting this message a couple of times when I tried to assess this website and sub-section. What could possibly be the problem? I get message something like "YOU ARE USING SUSPICIOUS IP.......", and then I was told to click "here". I will get the exact quote the next time round when it appears again.

[vinz]

The problem lies with spammers.

These spammers are customers of your ISP and when they spam, their IP address is captured or reported to a spammer tracking service and black listed as a spammer's IP address.

Unfortunately, these IP addresses are dynamic and are reassigned to different customers over time. If you happen to be assigned one of these IP addresses, our forum will detect it and show you that "suspicious IP" message. Most spam bots are not able to process the "if you are human"/"if you are not a BOT" link that you must click to get to AQ, and that helps to keep out most of the spammers.

Once you click that link, that particular PC you are on will be remembered and you should not encounter that message again for 24hrs.

Even more unfortunate is that, many of the IP addresses of Singapore's ISPs have been black listed. If you keep getting the message and usually never switch off your modem ever, I suggest that you turn it off, wait a few minutes, then turn it on again. This would usually cause the ISP to assign a new IP address to your modem. Then cross your fingers that the new IP is not black listed.

We apologise for the inconvenience caused, but this is part of AQ's on-going battle to keep the forum spam free, while reducing the human resources required to do so.

[hck]

Thanks for the explanation. I am a computer idiot, don't know how all these things works, but anyway, so long as I turn off modem or clicking the "here" doesn't give me problem, then I will do just that.

[bettafantastic]

Anyone encounter this before?
This is the same message repeated when I login to AquaticQuotient to check on some stuff.

Is someone using my internet?
Thanks for taking time to read.

Forbidden

Aquatic Quotient has detected that you are using a suspicious IP address.
If you are NOT a bot of any kind please click here to access Aquatic Quotient.
Why Am I Getting This Message?

If you are not a spammer, then you are probably seeing this message because your ISP is using dynamic IPs and you have been assigned an IP address that was previously used by a spammer and it has been black-listed. Unfortunately, these IP addresses are dynamic and are reassigned to different customers over time. If you happen to be assigned one of these IP addresses, our forum will detect it and show you this message.
Once you click the link above, the particular PC you are on right now will be remembered and you should not encounter this message again for 24hrs.
Even more unfortunate is that many of the IP addresses of ISPs have been black listed. If you keep getting the message and usually never switch off your modem ever, we suggest that you turn it off, wait a few minutes, then turn it on again. This would usually cause the ISP to assign a new IP address to your modem. Then cross your fingers that the new IP is not black listed.
We apologise for the inconvenience caused, but this is part of AQ's on-going battle to keep the forum spam free, while reducing the human resources required to do so.

[fotoudavid]

Me me, also got this!!

[wllm33]

i also got.
recently , don't know why cos i never spam.

[o2bubble]

I kept getting spam message.. sign, any workaround for this problem? Can AQ webserver auto-remove the IP from spam list if someone clicked the confirmation URL in the spam message so it will not show up the next time the same ip is detected? Thanks.

[vinz]

Nope. It's a third party service. Plus, it must be the owner of the IP that requests the removal... i.e. the ISP.

You should get that message only once a day on each device/PC you are on.

You can get around it as I suggested to hck above. Switch off the modem, wait a few minutes, switch it back on again and cross your fingers that your ISP gives you a new IP that is not black listed. I've read that if you are on cable, you might get back the same IP address if the pause is too short.

[bettafantastic]

I hate this!
Hope this person who uses my internet would go away...
Or else I would have to take action!!!

[vinz]

No one used your Internet.

When switch on your modem, your ISP will assign you an IP address (IP for short). This IP is your virtual address while you are on the Internet and allows information (i.e. web pages and other resources) that you request to be delivered to your PC.

This IP is not assigned to you permanently. When you switch off your modem and go offline, the ISP will assign it to another customer who switches on his modem and comes online. Hence the term "Dynamic IP address".

Each ISP has a limited pool of IPs. These IPs are reassigned to customers as they go on- and off-line.

The problem is a few of these customers spam, run spambots or perform other suspicious/malicious activities. Eventually, their activities get detected and their IPs are noted and black-listed. They find themselves getting blocked, so they switch off their modem and then on again to get a new IP address and continue their activities.

Guess who gets their old IP address? Yep, innocent customers like you. They do this so often that eventually, entire blocks of IPs from the ISPs are black-listed.

What you can do to help is to contact your ISP and tell them that their dynamic IP addresses are being blacklisted at ProjectHoneyPot.com and StopForumSpam.com. They, being the owners of the IPs, have to contact these parties and have their IP addresses removed form the black-list.

[vinz]

To give you an idea of how much spam we could get in a day:

Since Dec 2009, one of our anti-spammer systems has blocked about 10,600 attempts to by spam bots to register into AQ. That is an average of about 50 attempts each day.

[bettafantastic]

To give you an idea of how much spam we could get in a day:

Since Dec 2009, one of our anti-spammer systems has blocked about 10,600 attempts to by spam bots to register into AQ. That is an average of about 50 attempts each day.

Thats alot!!
Hope they go away!

[hck]

Hi Vinz

How do we report to our ISP when we do not even know our dynamic IP address? How can we find out whats our IP address? and how do we report? do we just log in to ProjectHoneyPot.com and StopForumSpam.com and then do our reporting there? or do we get in direct contact with say singnet/M1/Starhub? Sorry if I sound stupid, I really know next to nothing about such thing, its the 1st time I hear about spam address, dynamic IP address....

I would also think like bettafantastic, and thought someone uses my internet address and such. I turned off and on my modem but I still get that 'suspicious IP' message, so if something can be done at our end, then it would be good, if not, just have to bear with the inconvenience. I realised my problem started since I switched to using Mio Box recently.

[wllm33]

i am not surprise if the problem lies with mio tv. They can never get their act together. I am also using mio broadband and they are nothing but inefficient when it comes to support. ALL they ever give is more problem.

[Shadow]

Hi Vinz,

Can you record the MAC address instead of IP?

[vinz]

Robert,

Nope. If possible, the third party services will be doing it as well.

wllm33,

This is not MIO TV's fault. This is something that happens to ALL ISPs and there are no practical or ethical methods for them to monitor all their users.

hck,

See this guide to get your IP Address. You can either use the tool in your PC (ipconfig) or use the website's online tools (listed on the page).

Just call your ISP tech support and tell them that your IP is listed as a suspicious spammer IP address at ProjectHoneyPot.com and it is affecting your access to some websites. I guess they will ask you for your IP address, or verify your ID then use their system to get your current IP address, or guide you how to find it.

After that, the guy on the phone can't do much except to report it to his managers and the company should contact ProjectHoneyPot.com to get them to remove the IPs. I.e. the problem will not be solved immediately. It'll take some time for the company to contact ProjectHoneyPot.com, then probably ding dong back and forth a bit before ProjectHoneyPot is satisfied they should remove the IPs from their black list.

Make sure you ask the guy on the phone what they do in such cases. Do they have an action plan, etc. I'm just concerned the guy or the company will just leave it hanging.

Also, even if they get ProjectHoneyPot to remove the IPs, in a few months, a bunch of them will reappear in the list again as the IPs get passed around and their idiotic spammer customers spam from those addresses.

[hck]

Thx vinz for the detailed explanation, but since this is going to be a recurring problem, then I think I would rather leave it alone, since nothing much can be done to eliminate spammers completely. Thanks again for taking the trouble and time to explain.

[theludicrous]

hello, i don't know if i'm in the right thread. i also encounter this problems and it seems i cannot post or start new posts. can someone explain this to me?

[vinz]

Did you bother to read the notices and forum discriptions in the forums you tried to post in?

[theludicrous]

what i'm experiencing is, sometimes at different locations i can post or start threads, while at times i cannot. why is that so?