Hi guys,

Wanted to let you know that I'm thinking about going back to using Cloudflare server caching.  If you remember, we had this enabled earlier this year but it added a small delay to the commands and clicks.  It wasn't a bad delay but directly connecting the site was faster.  Since we went back to the direct connect we've been seeing a lot more hits from hackers and fake accounts. 

I believe the reason is I can't easily block entire countries like China, Russia, India, and Nigeria (as an example).  With Cloudflare, I can block these countries entirely and it will help us avoid these fake accounts.  This is an unfortunate part of the Internet and we need to accommodate and protect ourselves.  Frankly I don't see why people spend time doing this but they do.

To really protect ourselves, the best way to do it is by charging a small fee for people to register.  I've always promoted this site will be a free for everyone.  But, we may want to take a look at requiring a fee before people can post messages or interact in our classifieds system.  This will absolutely help against hackers and spam because this extra layer of protection through the purchase process and they just won't do it.  I won't push for this until we have a bigger discussion around it.

For now, I am seriously thinking about activating the Cloudflare service this weekend.  Let me know if you have any concerns.

Mike

I mean wow...  just being active for 10 minutes we've already blocked Russian bots 8 times.. 

7 hours ago, Mike said:

I mean wow...  just being active for 10 minutes we've already blocked Russian bots 8 times.. 

We’re at war with Russia and China.

Cyber war.

Any Chinese bots?

 

4 hours ago, Racer X said:

We’re at war with Russia and China.

Cyber war.

Any Chinese bots?

Yep, take a look at the latest report.  over 700 hits just in the last 12-15 hours...  wow

So far I've blocked Russia, China, and Nigeria.  I'll keep an eye out for other countries that also need to be blocked.

 

11 hours ago, Mike said:

So far I've blocked Russia, China, and Nigeria.  I'll keep an eye out for other countries that also need to be blocked.

 

Well, darn! Now our fellow Z enthusiasts in China, Russia, Nigeria, etc, won’t be able to come join in discussions about the awesome Z car.

Well We've gone and done it now.  The Russians have counter blocked the classic Lada forums.

3 hours ago, Reptoid Overlords said:

Well We've gone and done it now.  The Russians have counter blocked the classic Lada forums.

Yorgo was probably the one responsible for that. He couldn't post any more pictures of his tractors here.

So sometimes (depending on what computer I'm on) I run through a VPN. And I'm no expert on the topic, but I believe sometimes that VPN channel runs through Russia. I say that because things like Google all start displaying in Russian instead of English like it's detecting my location to be in Russia.

If that's the case, will that make it impossible for me to get to the forum under those circumstances?

Comrade?   

 

 

6 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

I believe sometimes that VPN channel runs through Russia.

No No... The russians need to use it to not be restricted to the "legal" websites..  They (the vpn provider.) just starts in Russian just because that's the most used language at the moment .. 😉 

Well my post above may have sounded like a joke, but it was totally serious (except for the "Comrade" quip at the end).

The VPN I use will randomly assign me a server and some of them appear to be in Russia. And something in the system picks that up somehow and sets my default location (and language) to Russian.

Doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes. I'm wondering if (when that happens) will my access to ClassicZ be blocked.

I know the obvious answer is "try it", and I will sometime. Next time I find my machine switching to Russia, I will see I have access or not.

29 minutes ago, Captain Obvious said:

Well my post above may have sounded like a joke, but it was totally serious (except for the "Comrade" quip at the end).

The VPN I use will randomly assign me a server and some of them appear to be in Russia. And something in the system picks that up somehow and sets my default location (and language) to Russian.

Doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes. I'm wondering if (when that happens) will my access to ClassicZ be blocked.

I know the obvious answer is "try it", and I will sometime. Next time I find my machine switching to Russia, I will see I have access or not.

нет. не делайте этого, вы навсегда попа!

On 8/7/2022 at 8:31 AM, SteveJ said:

Yorgo was probably the one responsible for that. He couldn't post any more pictures of his tractors here.

Only the old-timers will get that one.  I was going to make a Y0RGO comment before I saw your post.  RIP Yorgo BTW.