How To Get Unbanned From A Website
Banned From Accessing Your Favorite Content? – What Is My …
There are a variety of methods to banning someone from a website, forum, game, or chat. Some of the common methods and solutions are listed below. In general, your best option to remove a ban is to humbly apologize for your actions which lead to you being banned in the first place.
Banned by IP address
If you are banned only via your IP address you can go ahead and attempt to change your IP address. Read the FAQ: How do I change my IP address?, use a proxy, or use a VPN. Make sure to clear your cookies first.
Banned by cookie
Using your browser clear your cookies.
Banned by unique token
Many online games have a unique token that is passed during online gaming. This token is often related directly or indirectly to the CD (install) key included with the game when it’s purchased. Only by uninstalling and reinstalling with a new CD key will get you around being banned. This type of ban may also include websites that require specific plug-in applications such as Flash. You would want to uninstall any of these plug-ins and reinstall them. This *may* allow you to get passed this type of ban.
Banned by common information
Some websites will ban other accounts (or new accounts) with related personal information such as email address, password, credit card number, physical address, etc. When eBay shuts down accounts they seem to shut down any other accounts with related information. The only way around such a ban is to create a new account with *none* of the same information.
Banned by multiple above
Some methods of banning may include one or more of the above so we’d suggest that you do as much as is reasonable from the above solutions.
If the above suggestions do not help resolve your issue you may wish to post in the general questions forum. Please include as much detailed information as is reasonable.
Get hidden now. »» I want to hide my IP
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Block (Internet) – Wikipedia
For blocks on Wikipedia which administrators technically prevent users from editing, see WP:BLOCKPOL.
On the Internet, a block or ban is a technical measure intended to restrict access to information or resources. Blocking and its inverse, unblocking, may be implemented by the owners of computers using software. [1] Some countries, including China and Singapore, block access to certain news information. [1] In the United States, the Children’s Internet Protection Act requires schools receiving federal funded discount rates for Internet access to install filter software that blocks obscene content, pornography, and, where applicable, content “harmful to minors”. [2]
Blocking may also refer to denying access to a web server based on the IP address of the client machine. [3] In certain websites, including social networks such as Facebook or editable databases like wikis, users can apply blocks (based in either IP number or account) on other users deemed undesirable to prevent them from performing certain actions. Blocks of this kind may occur for several reasons and produce different effects: in social networks, users can block other users without restriction, typically by preventing them from sending messages or viewing the blocker’s information or profile. Privileged users can apply blocks that affect the access of the undesirable users to the entire website.
Blocking is used by moderators and administrators of social media and forums to deny access to users that have broken their rules and will likely do so again, in order to ensure a peaceful and orderly discussion place. Common reasons for blocking are spamming, trolling, and flaming. Some criticize cases of the use of bans by administrators of large websites, such as Twitter, [4] saying that these bans may be politically or financially motivated. However, websites have a legal right to decide who is allowed to post, and users often respond by “voting with their feet” and going to a place where the administrators see their behavior as acceptable.
Effects[edit]
Blocked users may be completely unable to access all or part of a site’s content, which is usually the case when censoring or filtering mechanisms are responsible for the block. Under a shadow ban, a user is given the false impression that their content is still being posted to the site, when in reality it is being hidden from all other users.
Evasion[edit]
Ban evasion (or block evasion) is the act of attempting to get around a ban, whether temporary or permanent, on a website.
Alternate accounts set up by people evading bans from websites are referred to as sockpuppets. Typically, if someone is caught evading a ban with a sockpuppet, the sockpuppet account is banned. If the original ban was temporary, it may be extended or even made permanent. Sometimes, the user’s IP address may be banned as well so the user cannot access the site or create new accounts. Some sites may remove all but a few traces of the ban-evader. TV Tropes and Wikipedia, for example, may mass-delete any pages created by a ban-evader.
Ban evasion can be detected by tracing a user’s IP address. If two accounts are using the same IP address, it could be a sign of ban evasion. Also, the use of a VPN, shown by rapid, drastic changes of IP address by the same user in a short period of time, can also be a sign that the user was trying to get around a ban. Ban evasion can also be spotted if posts or other contributions from two accounts look the same or similar, or on sites where the same email can be associated with multiple accounts, identical or similar emails can be a sign of ban evasion. Users who have been permanently banned for ban evasion may not be able to appeal their ban, which is the case on sites such as TV Tropes. [5]
When creating sockpuppets, ban evaders use a variety of tactics to disguise the fact that the new account was created by a previously banned user, such as choosing usernames with no relation to defunct accounts, an alternate email address, VPNs or proxy servers to mask their IP address, changing their IP address (sometimes only needing to rely on a dynamic IP address to automatically change it after a time), or using the site from public Internet access locations such as schools and libraries. Other possible measures include somewhat altering how they conduct themselves and exhibiting different behaviour in order to prevent moderators from determining that they are the same person. [citation needed]
See also[edit]
Ban (law)
Internet censorship
IP address blocking
Shadow banning
References[edit]
^ a b Westfall, Joseph (2012). “Internet Blocking”. Association of Internet Research Specialists. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
^ “Children’s Internet Protection Act | “. 2012. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
^ “Access Control – Apache HTTP Server”. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
^ “Twitter bans conservative writer Milo Yiannopoulos for good, while cracking down on abuse”. The Washington Post. 2016. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
^ “What to Do If You Are Suspended / Administrivia”. TV Tropes. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
US court rules masking IP address to access blocked Website violates law
U. S. District Judge Charles Breyer in Northern District of California has ruled that avoiding an IP address block to connect to a Website is a breach of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Some have taken this decision to mean that the court’s broad interpretation of the law may mean accessing Websites that are accessible only to some users by proxy servers, virtual private networks (VPN)s, or Tor may be illegal.
According to the court, neither 3Taps nor Padmapper can use Craigslist’s data for their online maps of available apartments.
This decision arose from a case that all started because, unlike many other popular sites, Craigslist does not provide an application programming interface (API) for third party services to use its data. Indeed, in the summer of 2012, Craigslist briefly claimed the copyright over everything posted on Craigslist.
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, who says that he’s merely a “customer support representative” for the company, told Ars Technica last year that “I can say that our culture has always been community-driven, and what they tell us, in large numbers and for years, [is] that their posts are not to be used by others for profit. ” One of Craiglist’s sources of income is charging for commercial apartment listings.
The case in question, Craigslist vs. 3Taps, revolved around a copyright infringement claim by Craigslist against data gathering company 3Taps. 3Taps had been scraping Craigslist rental apartment ads and then feeding the data via an API to the apartment listing company PadMapper. This business, in turn, used the data to create interactive maps using Google Maps for would-be renters. Craigslist claimed that this violated its terms of service (ToS).
So typical of a ToS legal disagreement, PadMapper and 3Taps came up with a workaround. Craigslist retaliated with a copyright claim against the two companies.
As is so often the case in circumstances like this, 3Taps countersued, claiming that Craigslist was trying to create a monopoly by squeezing out other would-be online classified advertising businesses.
Craigslist then blocked 3Taps Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from accessing its site. 3Taps continued, however, to pull Craigslist’s data by concealing its identity with different IP addresses and proxy servers. Craigslist then argued that the 3Taps’ subterfuge violated the CFAA which prohibits the intentional access of a computer without authorization that results in the capture of information from a protected computer.
Craiglist’s CFAA claim bothered many experts.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in an amicus curiae to the Court stated that the CFAA had “been stretched to cover all sorts of non-hacking behavior. (PDF Link) This case perhaps represents the zenith of this trend: plaintiff Craigslist, Inc. (“Craigslist”) alleges defendant 3Taps Inc. (“3Taps”) violated the CFAA and Penal Code § 502 by copying data on Craigslist’s publicly available website and then republishing that information on its own website. Imposing CFAA liability under these circumstances means that it can now become criminal to copy and paste data from a publicly available website intended to be seen by as many people as possible on the Internet. A person using Craigslist to look for an apartment is authorized to write notes on a pen and paper, or manually plot apartment listings on a paper map. The same behavior should not be treated as criminal simply because it was done with a computer. ”
3Taps tried to have this CFAA claim thrown out but Breyer ruled that “This Court cannot grant an exception on to the statute (the CFAA) with no basis in the law’s language or this circuit’s interpretive precedent. Accordingly, the Court DENIES 3Taps’ motion. ” (PDF Link).
Orin S. Kerr, a professor of law at the George Washington University, believes Judge Breyer’s decision is the first to directly address the issue that changing IP addresses to get around a block is an unauthorized access in violation of the CFAA. It’s not a decision, he’s happy with.
Kerr wrote, “IP addresses are very easily changed, and most people use the Internet from different IP addresses every day. As a result, attempting to block someone based on an IP address doesn’t ‘block’ them except in a very temporary sense. It pauses them for a few seconds more than actually blocks them. ”
Another legal expert, who doesn’t wish to be named, doesn’t see this decision having any broad effect. He summarized the decision as “The defendant moves to dismiss a CFAA complaint because the operator of a publicly-available Website cannot, it says, ban any particular user and use CFAA to enforce the ban. The court says it can’t dismiss the complaint on that ground, because there’s no support for the claimed immunity in the specific wording of the statute. The court says it isn’t criminalizing widespread conduct, because the question involved (whether CFAA liability can attach for accessing websites one has been specifically banned from) doesn’t involve those ordinary forms of cloaking, ” such as proxies, VPNs, or Tor.
In short, this is a decision applying only to a narrow, specific circumstance.
Hanni M. Fakhoury, staff attorney for the EFF, disagrees with the decision, “The court held that since everyone is ‘authorized’ to access a publicly accessible website under the CFAA, a party (here Craigslist) has to prove that this authorization was somehow revoked. In this case, the court said Craigslist’s act of blocking 3Taps IP address and the cease and desist letter were enough to ‘revoke’ the authorization. We disagree that IP address blocking is a sufficient type of technological circumvention to prove ‘access with authorization’ under the CFAA since (1) its common and easy to mask your IP address; and (2) there are legitimate reasons to do so. ”
But could this decision affect you and your use of such IP masking technologies? Fakhoury replied, “As to whether it would impact other technologies like Tor, etc., the decision doesn’t criminalize those steps in isolation. The opinion only says that if you use one of these techniques to work around the revocation of your access, there’s a CFAA claim. ” So, while not a correct decision, it’s still rather narrow in its potential application.
Related Stories:
CNET: Court rules that IP cloaking to access blocked sites violates law
CNET: 3Taps countersues Craigslist, alleges unfair ‘monopoly’
CNET: Craigslist sues PadMapper for ‘mass harvesting’ listings
No more adult services on Craigslist: 1st Amendment issue or business decision?
How did Craigslist manage to become the king of classifieds?
Frequently Asked Questions about how to get unbanned from a website
How do I get rid of IP ban?
If you are banned only via your IP address you can go ahead and attempt to change your IP address. Read the FAQ: How do I change my IP address?, use a proxy, or use a VPN. Make sure to clear your cookies first.
Why did I get banned from a website?
Common reasons for blocking are spamming, trolling, and flaming. Some criticize cases of the use of bans by administrators of large websites, such as Twitter, saying that these bans may be politically or financially motivated.
Is IP banning illegal?
Some have taken this decision to mean that the court’s broad interpretation of the law may mean accessing Websites that are accessible only to some users by proxy servers , virtual private networks (VPN)s, or Tor may be illegal. …Aug 21, 2013
