

Ask HN/PG: Is my IP banned? - DXL

Since about two days I am unable to connect to Hacker News. My problem seems to be comparable to the one reported here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=775381<p>Firefox shows simply a blank page (0 bytes), curl says "Empty reply from server" and Google Chrome notes "Error 324 (net::ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE): Unknown error."<p>My IP address can be viewed at http://yfrog.com/el64282782g. I have maintained only this account, which is still available and I have never posted anything controversial. In fact, I haven't submitted or commented on anything in the last three weeks or so at all. I ought it highly unlikely that my family with whom I share this IP would be interested in Hacker News so that can't be it either.<p>Can PG or someone else please check and see if my address is in fact banned or if it is a problem at the client's side.<p>Thanks,
Daniel<p>P.S. I know recall having recently installed this userscript:<p>http://github.com/brainkarma/hnreputation/tree/master<p>Might that have triggered an automatic anti-dos/anti-scraping ban?
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brk
I have no idea about the banning status of your IP address. I do find it
somewhat disappointing that a hacker news type could not do a little more low-
level troubleshooting to try to at least approximate the root cause.

Have you tried your same PC/browser but going through a proxy? Have you tried
your same account on the same PC in a different browser? Tried logging in from
a free/unsecured wifi somewhere? Tried deleting cookies in your browser? Tried
a different PC (library, friend, other family member, etc.).

Perhaps it's just my mood this AM, but it seems rather "do my homework for me"
of you to post this up without having done some research and troubleshooting
on your own.

~~~
jacquesm
it's not as bad as asking what ^H stands for :)

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calcnerd256
Well, it's not exactly easy to Google for ^H. Punctuation is annoying like
that.

~~~
jacquesm
who needs google:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/^H>

And a hacker asking for control-h ? (this is hacker news, isn't it ?)

~~~
calcnerd256
Well, just because I've read the Jargon File doesn't mean everyone else has.

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jacquesm
I'm suggesting the same approach as the one the other author used (it turned
out to be a peering issue there)

\- check your DNS resolver, make sure you get the right IP address
(174.132.225.106)

\- do a traceroute to the server and make sure you can actually reach it

\- try telnetting to the server and see if you can find out anything by
observing the response

If you find there is a peering issue (a router somewhere that drops traffic to
the subnet HN is hosted on) then a whois on the ip of the router will
sometimes give you contact information of the party responsible in case your
own ISP gives you the run around.

Oh, and last, make sure nobody is pulling a prank on you, check your own
iptables!

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ashleyw
Yes, your IP is banned. A few of us were banned for using the greasemonkey
script you mentioned, so unless you've done anything malicious recently,
that's likely the reason.

I apologised to PG directly and he kindly removed the ban for me.

~~~
DXL
Thanks. I emailed him yesterday and asked the same thing, now I'm just waiting
for a response.

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DXL
I did install this userscript recently:

<http://github.com/brainkarma/hnreputation/tree/master>

Might that have triggered an automatic anti-scraping/anti-dos ban or
something?

~~~
jacquesm
Definitely. that's what was warned about in the announcement.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=779157>

