to admins: am I banned?

[zeycus]

Hi, I apologize because this does not seem the most proper place to post this, but I could not find an admin e-mail.

Dear Euler project admins,

Since 31/1/2008 I have been unable to enter your site http://projecteuler.net. At first I thought that you had problems with the site. I tried from my parent's computer, a couple blocks away and same ISP, and the result was thhe same. However, when some days passed and nothing changed, I tried from a friend's computer (different ISP) and I was astonished to succeed at once. I tried some things, like changing my DNS server, introducing the IP number directly, but nothing seemed to work. I know very little about the "insides" of the Internet, but a friend of mine performed some tests from my computer, and he told me that MAYBE I am being "actively banned", and that I should ask you. So, I am writting now to ask, whether this is the case. I am user Zeycus, my IP is dynamic, just now it is 81.172.71.71, if this is useful for you to know, in Spain.

Maybe I am really being banned, or maybe my ISP is causing trouble. If I am being banned, I don't really see the reason, because I have played by the rules and enjoyed every problem. For the last ten or so I have been struggling to stay between the 5th and 10th place. Now I had to read the last problem and give my answer some days later from my friend's PC, to drop to the 25th (if memory serves, from this PC I can't check it).

Please, let me know if I have been deliberately banned, and in that case why. Maybe you wanted to ban someone else with the same ISP, and I have been banned as a secondary effect?

I was having such fun..., it is very distressing to be cut off.

Thank you sincerely,

[euler]

Hi zeycus,

I can absolutely reassure you that you have not been banned; in fact there are no current measures on the server for any of the administrators to actively ban anyone. I fully understand you being distressed and I'll do my best to help you resolve this. I have a few questions...

This forum (http://projecteuler.chat) and Project Euler (http://projecteuler.net) share the same name. It is interesting that you can access here. Could you check that you are able to access http://mathschallenge.net? This is another website of mine and resides on the same server as Project Euler.


When you say that you cannot enter the site, are you receiving a "you are banned" message, or is the domain name simply not resolving? What message do you receive?


Are you running any "internet security" or "parental control" software on your machine that could be blocking the IP address? Does your ISP run some kind of passive filtering?


If you prefer we can continue this conversation via Private Messaging; if you would like to do that, let me know if you'd like me to delete this thread.

With regards,
Colin

[daniel.is.fischer]

By e-mail zeycus informed me that

I type PE's URL, press Enter, and nothing
happens. No text nor image is received, and
after some minutes the browser stops trying.

I sometimes have similar problems accessing the sites or navigating there, usually it works on second, rarely third try.
Seems to be a server issue, perhaps too many simultaneous requests.

[zeycus]

Hi again, and thanks for your concern.

Hi zeycus,

I can absolutely reassure you that you have not been banned; in fact there are no current measures on the server for any of the administrators to actively ban anyone. I fully understand you being distressed and I'll do my best to help you resolve this. I have a few questions...

This forum (http://projecteuler.chat) and Project Euler (http://projecteuler.net) share the same name. It is interesting that you can access here.

I can't access here from home, now I am somewhere else.

Hi zeycus,
Could you check that you are able to access http://mathschallenge.net? This is another website of mine and resides on the same server as Project Euler.


When you say that you cannot enter the site, are you receiving a "you are banned" message, or is the domain name simply not resolving? What message do you receive?


Are you running any "internet security" or "parental control" software on your machine that could be blocking the IP address? Does your ISP run some kind of passive filtering?


If you prefer we can continue this conversation via Private Messaging; if you would like to do that, let me know if you'd like me to delete this thread.

With regards,
Colin

I don't mind this conversation being public. Maybe someone else would find it useful. I do not remember exactly the messages I am receiving, so let me gather information during the weekend, and I will post it on monday.

Thanks again,

Zeycus

[zeycus]

Hi all,

I could try some things in the weekend, but nothing worked. Using the
web-admin-tool nmap, to ping projecteuler.net, I receive a message
saying that the Host seems to be down. I know I don't have anything
strange in my internet configuration. It had been working for months
exactly as it is now, and yesterday I had to reinstall the OS from
scratch in my laptop, and anyway I could not access PE.

The one thing I forgot was to try the site mathschallenge, I will.
Anyway, it is clear that this is my problem, not PE's, so I am not
bothering you anymore. Thanks a lot for your concern and suggestions, I hope I will
have a solution for this ugly problem.

Thanks again,

[euler]

It might be worth contacting your ISP and asking if they run any filters on certain IP addresses. For your information, the IP address for Project Euler is 77.232.66.91. One of the problems with having the domain on a shared host is that there may well be other websites with the same IP address that your ISP consider inappropriate. If you do a reverse lookup on PE's IP address you'll find 124 sites that use the same address: http://whois.webhosting.info/77.232.66.91.

If your ISP do run IP address filtering they usually have a facility to override particular domains for a given IP address and it would only take a moment for them to verify that PE is perfectly suitable and add it to the "whitelist".

It might also be worth checking that your router/modem hasn't "accidentally" blocked the IP address.

[zeycus]

It might be worth contacting your ISP and asking if they run any filters on certain IP addresses. For your information, the IP address for Project Euler is 77.232.66.91. One of the problems with having the domain on a shared host is that there may well be other websites with the same IP address that your ISP consider inappropriate.

Thank you, that's definitely something I must ask them. But before, I am gathering information in a spanish forum, to know exactly
who has and who hasn't access to PE.

It might also be worth checking that your router/modem hasn't "accidentally" blocked the IP address.

I don't think so, since we I've found other people with the same problem.

Could you check that you are able to access http://mathschallenge.net? This is another website of mine and resides on the same server as Project Euler.

I tried, but I can't enter that site either.

Thank you again,

--
Zeycus

[zeycus]

It was not easy, but finally I succeded to convince my ISP that the problem was not in your site nor in my computer. It seems they have solved it, I could now enter here easily. Let's hope it stays like this, and thanks everybody for your concern and useful suggestions!

--
Miguel

[euler]

That's great news!

Out of interest, did they say what caused the problem? I just wonder if it was due to the IP address for Project Euler being caught up in some blacklist?

[zeycus]

Don't worry, that was not the case. The fact is that I posted in a spanish forum, and found out that other users were having problems too, with other addresses. I tried them, and it was the same, I could not enter those sites either. I knew of five cases, all dot-net domains. My ISP asked me to send them the trace to your IP, and I guess they found that one node was causing trouble, re-routed (somehow, I know almost nothing at all about these things), and now it works smoothly.