Were you randomly banned on 10/24?

[moon/Laura]

Hi gang. Yesterday, it appears that at least 4 people received messages that they were banned from the forum - only it wasn't from any action taken by myself or any other admin. None of the people who experienced the problem had done anything wrong, and all have been able to get back in since then. I am continuing to troubleshoot with Proboards support.

I have been advised that one user says when she finally got a login page, she was told she had to go to an advertising site first. This is VERY unusual, so support and I would like to know if that user was the only who got that, or not.

What I need is for anyone who was "banned" yesterday to please post here. If you got the advertising redirect, please say so, and if you happen to remember the name of the site (check your internet history, if you can), we need to know that as well.


Thank you all!!

~moon

[steph08]

I got the banned message yesterday, but I did not get the redirect to an advertising site.

[moon/Laura]

Well, we will likely never know just what happened. Support has said
"if something happened yesterday that is no longer happening to them now, there's not a whole lot we can do. Try to remind your members that they can report ads by using the ad-report tool by pressing and holding the CTRL + ALT keys together on their keyboard, and then press R. Also you may want to remind them to take a full screenshot of a potential problem so we're able to see exactly what they see as well."

[inhouston]

Fluffy - has a personal hotline for such problems

Maybe they could help - or not.

[moon/Laura]

well, oddly enough, I found out about one of the affected people because she started a thread on support about it.... i had heard about another one through PM by an intermediary, and a third when he PMd me on another board.. the 4th (who got the ad redirect) was found by accident when another mod noticed a comment in a thread.

But yes, keeping the "board email" is always a good thing to do, unless you have others that can pass a message to us on your behalf.

[femmefatale]

I didn't get booted but I am having trouble now, as it is telling me the webpage isn't available. I finally got back on.

[Don Perignon]

The rational conclusion... someone who has moderator privileges must be lying.

"Power corrupts."

[Annie7]

Moonbeam,

I didn't get any redirection message. Next time I'll take a screen print.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the board email?

Thanks.

[moon/Laura]

Hi annie.. thanks for the input..


the board email is [e-mail]

anything sent there comes to me, personally.

The rational conclusion... someone who has moderator privileges must be lying.

antibabble, your 'anti authority' and negativity is tiresome. I checked the security logs thoroughly as they show exactly what gets done and by whom. I had banned 4 IPs within 24 hours. All of us keep records of all bans -user name, email and IP(s).. there were no other bans besides the ones I did, and none of the IPs affected were on that list..

please, feel free to read the thread on support, support.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=support&action=display&thread=403932&page=1


but this post here sums it up nicely.

The first 2 octets of the IPs banned were
173.245
216.172
122.169
50.50

The potential affected IPs were/are

Apple
66.228
140.194 <-- this is the one she was blocked from earlier but later was able to access on.


usaone
74.143
68.80
68.163
151.199
141.158 <-- this is the ip he PMd me from on the other board, so presumably what he was using when he got the ban message on my board

vidyap
144.160 < --- vidyap got in on this one.
173.54


if you know anything about networking, you can see that there is no way that any of the 3 i knew about at the time should have been affected.

[Elderkind]

Afternoon All,

I was banned on the 24th as well but was not redirected to an advertising site. This was on my work computer and they block any advertising... I was able to log on again later that afternoon!

[hockeygrl]

I was banned, and I am still banned, on my proboards Iphone app, but I am not banned on my laptop or my desktop. It won't let me refresh the board, and I can't get on even through the browser on my Iphone. I am fixing to ask for my $$$ back that I spent on the app.

[chiver78]

Oct 25, 2011 20:48:32 GMT -5 hockeygrl said:

I was banned, and I am still banned, on my proboards Iphone app, but I am not banned on my laptop or my desktop. It won't let me refresh the board, and I can't get on even through the browser on my Iphone. I am fixing to ask for my $$$ back that I spent on the app.

hockeygrl, thanks for piping up. I wondered about smartphone apps, and whether they would have a different subnet or anything to tweak whatever caused the ban. I'm going to copy and paste your post here onto the support board, I hope that's okay. hopefully someone can help you out. I use the phone app too, and other than having moderator features turned off, it is a lot more user-friendly on my phone!

[moon/Laura]

ty chiver!!

[hockeygrl]

No prob moon. Thanks for looking into it for us. I will hold off on contacting pb until you hear back from them.

[Apple]

Like I told moon in a PM, I really wanted to EARN my first ban I was banned from somewhere around 0630 to 1200 pacific time but was able to get back in. I did not have any advertising thing to go through to log back on.

One thought, sometimes if you get the wrong password the first time they make you put in words you see on the screen to "prove you are human"--a few times they'll make you watch a video ad first (once you click on it you can click on "skip ad" or something like that and it will just give you the words to type). Maybe that is what happened?

[Wisconsin Beth]

Oct 25, 2011 21:43:42 GMT -5 Apple said:

Like I told moon in a PM, I really wanted to EARN my first ban I was banned from somewhere around 0630 to 1200 pacific time but was able to get back in. I did not have any advertising thing to go through to log back on.

One thought, sometimes if you get the wrong password the first time they make you put in words you see on the screen to "prove you are human"--a few times they'll make you watch a video ad first (once you click on it you can click on "skip ad" or something like that and it will just give you the words to type). Maybe that is what happened?

I've never had to watch a video when I screw up my login. And I screw up the login on my home laptop on a regular basis.

Clicking the back button does seem to work so you don't have to type their phrase. And I still think it's creepy that the phrase relates to a discussion I was either participating in or reading, which is why I use the back button now that I know about it (Thanks Moon!)

[moon/Laura]

yw

[moon/Laura]

Oct 25, 2011 20:48:32 GMT -5 hockeygrl said:

I was banned, and I am still banned, on my proboards Iphone app, but I am not banned on my laptop or my desktop. It won't let me refresh the board, and I can't get on even through the browser on my Iphone. I am fixing to ask for my $$$ back that I spent on the app.

Ricky from support would like to know what error message you are getting, please.

And I would like to know if you've gotten on via the app before?

[mandyms]

I am trying to start a new thread and it is not allowing me to

[mmhmm]

In what way are you trying to start the thread, mandy? Please, walk me through what you're doing.

[mandyms]

Thanks, Mmmhmm, I figured it out. (I was trying to put the subject in the attachment).

[Nazgul Girl]

I will say that I went to the board this morning at work while on my break, and typed in my usual msn money board search, and when I picked out the board, I was taken to an obvious scam board which had ad after ad stating that I qualifed for a free notebook, or free trip, etc., screen after screen, even when I was trying to cancel out of it. I had to shut it down and start over. I would say that unfortunately, something is still going on. If I had known about the people being banned, I would have thought to preserve the address. I will see what happens tomorrow. It took me a couple more tries to get on, but nothing serious.

[mmhmm]

Glad you got it straight, mandy!

[mmhmm]

Spooki, what is your usual msn money board search? What search engine and search terms do you use? I'll try to duplicate your experience.

[moon/Laura]

and spooki, if it does happen again, please.. take a screenshot!

you can do that by pressing Alt+PrtScr ... then simply paste it into paint or something like that.. save it as whatever you want, then you can upload it as an attachment here, or email it to [e-mail]. then i can pass it on to support.

[reformeddaytrader]

Were you randomly banned on 10/24?


No to the best of my knowledge I was NOT banned Moonbeam in case you were wondering about me.....

But was randomly or unnecessarily banned before but that is a subject for another time and place....

RDT

[shandi76]

Like hockeygirl, I was banned from the boards via my iPhone on 24/10, but was later able to access the boards via my home PC.

The ban on my iPhone disappeared sometime the next day I think.

[tiredturkey]

No ban, but every time I try to post a reply I get a message that IE is closing the page to protect my computer. I"m not getting that message on any other websites I frequent.