Since yesterday I cant access NPs if I am using my VPN.
I have been using a VPN for 5 years now and in order for me to use NPs I have to turn it off.
Why is this?
I am on many sites during the day, not just NPs so I do not want to turn my vpn off. I did so just to make this post but I cant keep doing this.
Is anyone else having this issue?
Thanks
Eric has already provided most of the details, but I just wanted to add a few clarifications:
- We typically only restrict VPNs if we see a very high percentage of malicious activity from them.
- Most significant public VPNs get restricted eventually.
- We go out of our way to avoid restricting VPNs that are used primarily for censorship evasion, and we have explicit exemptions in our Terms of Service for certain classes of users.
- We almost never deliberately restrict private (corporate) VPNs, as they are rarely a source of abuse.
- Even when we restrict a VPN, registered users are typically still able to use them. You may be unable to register a new account or log in, but if you log in with your VPN disabled, then re-enable your VPN, you usually won't run into issues.
- If you find that your VPN is blocked outright, it's probably time to find a more reputable provider.
- We do occasionally permit otherwise non-exempt individual members to use a VPN. This whitelisting happens on a user-by-user basis, not a VPN-by-VPN basis. For this to happen, the user has to have their own private VPN with an IP address dedicated to them. We have never whitelisted a public VPN unless they transparently provide us with a real IP address and are unlikely to do so.
- There are some public proxies (not so much VPNs) that are "transparent", meaning that they will provide the real IP address of a user with every request. We do whitelist a few of these, but we have to consider them big and reputable enough that we can trust they're giving us the correct IP addresses.
Why do we do this? NamePros offers a marketplace; this makes us a target of abuse. We don't actually rely on IP addresses to detect fraud such as shill bidding, but a lot of scammers use VPNs anyway thinking we won't be able to detect them. Restricting registrations and logins from frequently-abused VPNs has proven to be a very effective deterrent. Plus, it does provide a degree of accountability.
The largest issue we run into with this tactic--one that we fully acknowledge--is that it's inconvenient for people who prefer to use a VPN for reasons other than censorship evasion. For example, I like to use a VPN while I'm working from a particular mall because the company running the public hotspots there makes it very clear in their privacy policy that they sell records of my activity. However, I can't access NamePros from that VPN--or my bank account, or my PayPal account, or anything else involving money, because my account will get flagged. (This happens to me on a fairly regular basis: about a week ago my Apple ID was flagged, which was quite a headache to resolve.)
However, inconvenience is a small price to pay for security, and we want you to feel safe here. Restricting VPNs has proven so effective, in fact, that I would personally be hesitant to use any marketplace that
doesn't enact some kind of restriction on VPN usage.
Naturally, technology and usage patterns evolve over time. There may come a day when these restrictions cause too many problems for legitimate users, and we're forced to take another route. However, at the moment, public VPNs are far more popular than they have ever been, yet we still see very little legitimate traffic from them. And most of the legitimate traffic we do see passes through unimpeded because most VPNs aren't outright blocked, just restricted from performing certain activities.
Additionally, we're always looking for ways to make these restrictions less intrusive for the majority of our members. Often, you may find that restrictions are loosened over time. If we see a DDoS attack sent through a VPN, we may block it temporarily, but usually the block is replaced with a registration restriction after a few days. If your VPN is blocked long-term, then we've seen a ridiculously unacceptable amount of malicious activity from it, usually in the form of deliberate attacks, and we've had no choice but to block it.
Please note that usage of a public VPN to access NamePros generally violates our Terms of Service, though there's at least one exception stated there. I can't go into too much detail about our fraud detection and prevention, but I can say that, statistically, using a VPN doesn't look great. When something like 95% to > 99% of the VPN usage we see is malicious (depending on the measurement method), it's probably not a category into which you want to place yourself.
You might need a different VPN.
Try Anonymize.com VPN:
https://anonymize.com/vpn/
There is a free option.
I don't know off the top of my head whether we restrict or block Anonymize at the moment, but I would caution that switching VPN providers is a short-term solution, and neither the VPN provider nor NamePros are able to guarantee that the VPN will continue to be allowed on NamePros. Furthermore, whether or not your VPN is blocked/restricted, usage of a public VPN violates our Terms of Service.
(Edit: I ran some checks; we classify all of the datacenters you utilize as moderately high risk. Anonymize users won't be completely blocked, but they won't be able to submit content, log in, or register. I believe some of those datacenters were completely blocked until recently, but we loosened the restrictions on them a month or two ago after we saw a decrease in L7 attacks.)
We can likely get the IPs whitelisted if you are having any issues.
You can certainly request this by emailing me or sending me a DM, but it's unlikely we'd be able to honor it.