VPN and PPRuNe
 

I’ve recently joined the 21st century and installed a VPN. Whenever the VPN is active on my mobile device and I try to access pprune I get the following.

The owner of this website (www.pprune.org) has banned the autonomous system number (ASN) your IP address is in (212238) from accessing this website.

whats going on hive mind

Some websites have a problem with users accessing via VPN. It may compromise their business model or lead to them breaking the law.

If they recognise an incoming IP address as belonging to a VPN provider they may block access - as appears to have happened to you.

You could try switching to a different VPN server... I understand some companies offer that option. No guarantees though.

Don't know if a VPN is typically 21st century. It offers a more secure connection between you and the site/service you're trying to access so that important data isn't intercepted, but how important is that on PPRuNe?

I’m not saying it’s important between myself and pprune. But it’s on my device and always on.

I would disagree with that. Unless you are using a private VPN between 2 secure endpoints - e.g. home to office or a site-site VPN connecting 2 offices - it is no more secure than a "normal" connection. The VPN in use here sounds like it is just tunnelling data to a different exit point, so as to appear to have a source IP address different to the actual address. Often used to appear to be in a different country, or just to obfuscate the true location for whatever reason.

However, the actual data in transit between the VPN exit point and the destination (PPRuNe in this case) has exactly the same security (or lack thereof) as if it was sent from the true source and since virtually all web traffic is secured (HTTPS) anyway, there is no additional encryption benefit in using a VPN.

[Drift]No probs with PPRuNe but can't access the WIX site via my BT Broadband on phone or laptop - DNS error, and now cannot download the latest WhatsApp for Windows from the Microsoft Store - access the site ok, just not download the file or updates...

Apparently changing the DNS numbers in my Broadband connection/security settings may solve the first problem but bit nervous about changing settings just in case! Using Wetherspoons WiFi or my O2 account I can access WIX no problem on phone. Online advice is either confusing or doesn't work... Will get back to it but... [/rant!]

Good point... perhaps I should have said 'slightly more secure'. The switch to https for a lot of websites has already done a lot to tighten security. A VPN might also make using a public or semi-public WiFi access point slightly more secure but even without it, anyone intercepting that connection would indeed still have to crack the encryption on the transmitted information.

I think I was trying to say that using a VPN full time on a device may be superfluous for many of us.

An AS is a collection of networks (IP v4 or v6) that is managed by a single entity, usually an ISP. They have a common routing policy to connect those networks to and from the rest of the internet, peering with one or more other ASs.

It is unusual to block an entire AS, which may represent dozens of IP networks (rather than just blocking a specific IP network or address), but if it is associated with TOR networks (or other potentially malicious traffic), or has a significant number of blacklisted network addresses (e.g. NK, China, Russia), it's possible that the entire AS is blocked. Bear in mind that PPRuNe is protected by Cloudflare, which gathers such threat information and acts accordingly.

Can you tell us what the VPN IP address you get on your mobile is? You can use a what's my IP website to get that, if you can't see in in the device settings. It would be interesting to see what country & network that egress point is in. Perhaps you need to choose your exit point more carefully!

It is by design.

VPN is interfering (or downright killing) their ad supported business model. Would be willing to pay for an add-less version of the site.

So at the moment it’s 217.146.82.188 but it does rotate.
the vpn is Surfshark. And funnily enough at the moment it’s working.

That IP is in AS25369, which is obviously not blocked - as I say, you need to choose your exit point carefully - which of the 4 UK Surfshark locations are you using?

https://www.iplocationtools.com/217.146.82.188
https://bgp.he.net/AS25369#_graph4

Some of the IP ranges used by an exit node may have been used for nefarious purposes once upon a time. pprune probably just buys a blocking list from someone. I get similar blocking occasionally when I use my mobile hotspot.

I always change my DNS away from my broadband provider. Just seems more reliable. On Windows you can set more than one on an interface. My router is unusually restrictive and I can;t change it there. I have DHCP address but static DNS.

Choose your poison:-

Google 8.8.8.8 +others
Some other one 9.9.9.9
OpenDNS

• 208.67.222.222.
• 208.67.220.220.

I am using right now
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 8.8.8.8
9.9.9.9