Good day.. I am a 52 year old guy who frequently posts on Avsim when required. In some forums I'm am getting blocked by an application called "Spamhaus". Is this a virus or a "legit" app? I only ever post advice to other users..It says my IP is blacklisted...is this a scam in itself? Regards.

Edited July 8, 20187 yr by Peter Webber

5 minutes ago, Peter Webber said:

Good day.. I am a 52 year old guy who frequently posts on Avsim when required. In some forums I'm am getting blocked by an application called "Spamhaus". Is this a virus or a "legit" app? I only ever post advice to other users..It says my IP is blacklisted...is this a scam in itself? Regards.

Not a scam.  Enter your IP address on this web page.   https://www.spamhaus.org/lookup/     It will show you how to unblock yourself.

7 hours ago, Peter Webber said:

I'm am getting blocked by an application called "Spamhaus". Is this a virus or a "legit" app?

You can also check https://whatismyipaddress.com/blacklist-check and, if on four or five blacklists, you have a serious problem that needs to be fixed.

11 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

You can also check https://whatismyipaddress.com/blacklist-check and, if on four or five blacklists, you have a serious problem that needs to be fixed.

Thanks. It's only one forum. It's strange because on that particular forum, I have only ever posted maybe 3 times and my last post was an important fix which was "pinned" by the administrator due to its relevance..I'm sure it must be some kind of error..

I can assure you it is not an error.  AVSIM uses StopForumSpam to fight against known spammers.  Please check your IP.  You can also try to go to your ISP and see if they will give you a new IP address.

Just get a new IP Address..either unplug the modem for a  few hours..(unless ya have a voice over IP) or:

 

Click Start->Run, type cmd and press Enter. Type ipconfig /release at the prompt window, press Enter, it will release the current IP configuration. Type ipconfig /renew at the prompt window, press Enter, wait for a while, the DHCP server will assign a new IP address for your computer.

I agree with the above, but that would depend upon wether your modem/router and ISP allocate Fixed/static IP address or renew your IP address dynamically, Dynamic IP addresses are less likely to result in these errors because they are reassigned / Dynamic IP address lease renews automatically once every 24 hours.

12 hours ago, Jethro said:

Dynamic IP addresses are less likely to result in these errors because they are reassigned / Dynamic IP address lease renews automatically once every 24 hours.

This is incorrect.  Maybe 10 or 20 years ago but dynamic IP addresses stick with one customer for years.  For instance, my IP address is dynamic and has not changed for years.  On AVSIM it has been used by me almost 6000 times.  My ISP is FIOS.  More information here - https://whatismyipaddress.com/dynamic-static

The ISP's and others do not like to change the IP's anymore.  For one, they are running out of them and they also want to be able to identify the hackers, the spammers, and other evil-doers and restrict their access to sites.  AVSIM does not normally approve registrations where it is indicated the member is a known spammer based on his/her IP address.  As indicated above, there are ways to get the bad things removed from the IP address.  I was even on 3 blacklists a few years ago (with the dynamic IP address I currently have) and went to one of the blacklist owners and requested removal and it was done immediately but they moderated my activity for 30 days.  Blacklist owners like the fact individuals try to clean up their IP's as it makes them more aware of the issues.

Thankyou for the clarification Jim, much appreciated.   

But why does my IP address become blacklisted when I am definitely not a "spammer"? How do they determine this?

5 minutes ago, Peter Webber said:

But why does my IP address become blacklisted when I am definitely not a "spammer"? How do they determine this?

Good explanation here: https://www.whatismyip.com/why-is-my-ip-blacklisted/

Hello Peter,

Have you done a full system scan (full Heuristic and root scan). With something like "Norton Power Eraser" you may have a Trojan or some virus malware affecting your IP and or browser. Then get your IP unblacklisted and request a new IP address from your ISP, that is the consensus.

I would check for malware too.  Interesting, I have never heard of Spamhaus.  It is good that ip addresses can be watched for spam, if an ip address is sending out traffic, it can slow a system and hurt sim performance so it is a good catch if a system is caught with something on it.  I use hijackthis to check for rogue services, it is a good program although one has to be careful not to disable essential Windows services, some have rather funky names that sound like malware.

John

37 minutes ago, Cactus521 said:

I have never heard of Spamhaus.

Its mostly for blocking email spam, but it works for forums also. Here's a summary of what the organization does:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spamhaus_Project

The fascinating, info to me are the summary of the lawsuits filed by spammers against Spamhaus.

It is possible that after a power outage that your cable modem could be assigned a new IP address by your ISP and that IP address has been previously blacklisted. The probability is slim but it does happen.

Thanks for all the info! Never too old to learn something new! Will do some research..