In the last couple days several people (including me, the administrator) have been blocked from posting to the site. The short form of the reason why is that there are too many people with infected computers on your network spreading viruses and attacking other computers, and so the network has been blacklisted (otherwise known as being put on the “naughty” list). Our anti-hack protection uses an international database of blacklisted IP addresses (the unique identifier of your computer on the internet) and it seems there is something malicious in the Korean computer world right now that is wreaking particular havoc. The reason is:
Within the past two days users have found themselves blocked from their own sites while using recent versions of Bad Behavior. A third party blacklist which Bad Behavior queries recently began sending false positives for any IP address queried, causing everyone using Bad Behavior to be blocked. This issue is fixed in Bad Behavior 2.0.11.
Hat tip to the Lost Nomad for linking to the fix.
I have temporarily turned off the protection but will put it back on immediately if I notice any problems. I am presently upgrading to a new version of our anti-hack protection and turning it back on. This should solve the immediate issues. For those of you who like to write articles and comment, send me an email with your IP address and I’ll whitelist you (put your computer on the “nice” list, as it were) so that should I have to put the protection back on you’ll still have access.
Sorry for the inconvenience! Please remember to update your anti-virus software regularly to help prevent these sorts of attacks and lockdowns. It’s a bit like Bob Barker‘s reminder to have your pet spayed or neutered to help control the pet population.
