What the >/÷<[ is going on?

[JohnD]

Yesterday, I logged onto this site, to be greeted by the notice that I was BANNED.    For bad language, I think it said, when I'm not a potty mouth.

I'm getting used to this.  As you may recall, there was a difference of opinion with other organisers about the way I ran my part of the Triumph Malvern event a couple of years ago.   I was banned then, even ecorted from the site, and the Chairman  deemed it so serious that I was also banned from the same event a year later.   Yes, the one that was cancelled for lack of interest.

I have no idea if I will be permitted to attend next year's  InterClub International.  Certainly I won't be volunteering to contribute as an organiser.   And when I'm told I'm banned from the TSSC message board, apparently on equally specious grounds, I may give up on that as well.  No loss, you may say.  Well, I would agree.

Even more mysterious, I'm not BANNED today!  Hence I may post this cautionary tale. 

What the ×=>_= is going on?

John

[KevinR]

John,

You (personally) have never been banned from the TSSC Forum.

As a Forum, we are under incessant attack from spammers, and I have to spend several hours a week keeping on top of their attempted registrations.

To try and block spammers, we also ban IP addresses that have a history of being the source of spammers attempting to register on the forum.

The IP address are allocated to your computer by your Internet Service provider, and the one that your computer selected yesterday (probably on your mobile phone as its a Vodaphone IP address) has an extensive history of being used for attacking forums.  It was added to the TSSC Forum banned list September this year, and the cleantalk.org logs for this IP address show that it was still being used as a source of spam as recently as the 11th December - You were allocated it on the 12th December for a short period of time, before you were allocated another one for the rest of the day (or a different device).  You have now been allocated yet another IP address.

So if you get a message that you are "banned" because you have inadvertently been allocated an IP address that is often allocated to someone that sends out spam, then you will know immediately you try and access the forum.

If on the other hand, you can access the forum, but it wont let you do anything - then you have been personally banned - and you will get a message that lets you know.  And for avoidance of doubt, NO you have NOT been personally banned.

If you find you are IP address banned, then simply switch off your router and switch it on again and it will be allocated a new IP address that is probably not on the banned list.

[dougbgt6]

Good to know Kevin.

I think our site pretty forgiving speaking as a basic Anglo Saxon vocabularist. I got locked out of Telecaster Discussion Forum for referring to our beloved ex-leader Boris as a clown. Politics not allowed apparently. Bloody Americans, keen enough to show off their firearms! 

Doug

[JohnD]

Thank you, Kevin, for your completely incomprehensible explanation!

It's one which I totally accept  as I trust you and your expertise!   But such an explanation would be unacceptable for a physical product:    "We are sorry that your [modern] car stopped working for while on the motorway!   It's just that the EMU decided to use a different timing for while"     Surely any organisation that cared about its members would so not wish to see "You are BANNED" on them as make sure it didn't happen?

And my paranoid asks, has anyone else, ever, been told they are BANNED in this way?   I have told my paranoid to go away again.

John

Edited December 13, 2023 by JohnD

[Pete Lewis]

youre not alone i had this in the past , same problem all down to what IP thinks you are 

re boot and all solved 

my C5X says cant drive for 23mins when its doing an update but for a month none of them worked so it went in for a good kicking 

 

[Peter Truman]

John, Just be thankful Kevin is there to protect us .

our national telephone and nbn provider is advising me to update my email address or I won’t be able to send when I look at the pages to update I don’t know half the info there asking forI’ll have to get my little IT Vietnamese guru in to sort it!

[Steve P]

I had the same message a while ago, never knew why but it corrected itself the next day. Now I know.

Steve

[KevinR]

John
I could remove all spam controls and just let it run rampant like the TR-Register forum, and then within a few hours you would be pleading to have the controls re-instated.

its a simple choice, rampant spam or the occasional “banned” message.

think yourself lucky you don’t try to access the forum from Russia or China - most of the spam bots are based in these two countries, so they feature very significantly in the banned IP list.

[PeteH]

"Spam", Not the canned meat, that makes good fritters!, but the Information overload directed by persons of indeterimate parenthood, Is the bane of life for many individuals and IT "guru`s". My youngest is a wizz at it, so good in fact he is currently working Inside a faraday cage  for ???? (If I told you they would have to kill me🙄) who`s entire working life is undoing the effects of events from out and out bribery to "ransom" demands. The vast majority does indeed originate from the "east" Including the aforsaid China, Russia, plus N Korea, and a couple of Balkan nations too, Iran is also another "suspect".

More frighteneing in my view is the fact that so much of the technology we use daily originates from similar sources. The software that manages your car, for instance, is manufactured in such places, under political regeims the demand total access to their systems.

For those who may be following the current BBC offering "VIGIL" the event that is the theme of the series, is frighteningly possible, hacking into "secure" area`s is apparently more prevalent that most would expect.

Pete

Edited December 13, 2023 by PeteH

[JohnD]

OK, my paranoid is sedated by your reports of similar events, and no, please, Kevin!  Don't let the Internet rip!

John

[Colin Lindsay]

12 hours ago, PeteH said:

More frightening in my view is the fact that so much of the technology we use daily originates from similar sources. The software that manages your car, for instance, is manufactured in such places, under political regeims the demand total access to their systems.

Back in the 1970s I read a sci-fi novel called the 'Cold Cash War' in which a certain country infiltrated the electronics of the Western nations and were able to cripple or manipulate the said countries by triggering all kinds of bugs and interrupters (the term virus hadn't been coined yet) and win a war against them, or else give an advantage to the country they did want to win against others. Radios, vehicles and even weapons all refused to work. It may still come true.

I don't fancy not being able to use a car until I've paid ransomware.

[DVD3500]

1 hour ago, Colin Lindsay said:

Back in the 1970s I read a sci-fi novel called the 'Cold Cash War' in which a certain country infiltrated the electronics of the Western nations and were able to cripple or manipulate the said countries by triggering all kinds of bugs and interrupters (the term virus hadn't been coined yet) and win a war against them, or else give an advantage to the country they did want to win against others. Radios, vehicles and even weapons all refused to work. It may still come true.

I don't fancy not being able to use a car until I've paid ransomware.

Why use technology when a little bit of nuance and misinformation will get humans to fark it all up for you?

I was working in a "computer science lab" in the early 90's and we were hooking everything up to the Internet after being on ARPAnet for years.

The first time we got it working we were genuinely excited. Look at ALL this knowledge! All free! Humanity can not but benefit!

We mistook knowledge for wisdom...

 

 

[JohnD]

Don't knock the Internet.   Just as with any other technology, from motorcars to guns, from medical research to eugenics, it's humans who who bugger things up.

 

[dougbgt6]

2 hours ago, JohnD said:

it's humans who who bugger things up.

That's the problem with AI, we've taught the machines to do it themselves.

I always thought Terminator was an action movie vehicle for Schwarzenegger, but no! 

Doug 

[JohnD]

Why this fear of AI?  Sure some human will give them access to the trigger, but we can prevent that.

[Wagger]

Back in the 1980's, the definiton of a computer virus was something that accessed and modified your hard disk without your permission. What did Windows do from the OFF?

Stick with our classics guys.They won't be driving themselves anytime soon.

AI is great for analysing pictures on CT scanners etc. Not sure about the rest of it.

[dougbgt6]

9 hours ago, JohnD said:

Why this fear of AI?  Sure some human will give them access to the trigger, but we can prevent that.

There speaks an adult speaking of their child. Once they are sentiment they will do what they want. We have given birth to the silicons. They will roam the galaxy not us.

Doug

Edited December 15, 2023 by dougbgt6

[PeteH]

I have a son that works on the leading edge of this type of software, at present his function is, as far as he is able to say without sanction, as a sort of "policeman" to prevent, preferably, or contain and repair the efforts of Malware to interupt the "free" use of those benefits the internet brings to society. He don`t (can`t) say a lot, but he is very wary about certain sources of data and information. His "take" on A-I, is that in principle it will be of great benefit to humankind, only so long as the Hackers/Malware providers can be controlled. That means staying ahead of the pack which will be very expensive not trailing it, playing catch-up is a dangerous game.

Pete.

[Colin Lindsay]

2 hours ago, PeteH said:

His "take" on A-I, is that in principle it will be of great benefit to humankind, only so long as the Hackers/Malware providers can be controlled. That means staying ahead of the pack which will be very expensive not trailing it, playing catch-up is a dangerous game.

Pete.

We have entire organised gangs, maybe even countries, using Ransomware and other viruses to extort money about of people. Imagine what they'll do with AI. Many computer hackers start off in their early teens hacking for fun and being 'mischievous' with other people's computers. It's bad enough that at present they can clone cars and set alarms off in the middle of the night at the touch of a button; imagine some disgruntled 'school shooter' type getting access to AI?

[DVD3500]

On 14/12/2023 at 13:00, JohnD said:

Don't knock the Internet.   Just as with any other technology, from motorcars to guns, from medical research to eugenics, it's humans who who bugger things up.

 

With regard to guns: They have a very limited range of household uses when compared to say... x-rays...?

[JohnD]

17 minutes ago, DVD3500 said:

With regard to guns: They have a very limited range of household uses when compared to say... x-rays...?

Early TV sets had a thick cover over the front of the CRT that was lead glass - they emitted X-rays!

But what's your quibble?   Household use of guns?  In the US, there are 1.2 guns in legal ownership for every American.  So they are certainly, in some societies, a household factor.  The criminal.use of guns is a different matter, in every country.

[rlubikey]

On 14/12/2023 at 14:22, dougbgt6 said:

That's the problem with AI, we've taught the machines to do it themselves.

I was going to say, the problem is it might have been programmed by the same people who did the Post Office accounting system. 

But then I went on to read Pete's post:-

8 hours ago, PeteH said:

I have a son that works on the leading edge of this type of software, at present his function is, as far as he is able to say without sanction, as a sort of "policeman" to prevent, preferably, or contain and repair the efforts of Malware to interupt the "free" use of those benefits the internet brings to society. He don`t (can`t) say a lot, but he is very wary about certain sources of data and information. His "take" on A-I, is that in principle it will be of great benefit to humankind, only so long as the Hackers/Malware providers can be controlled. That means staying ahead of the pack which will be very expensive not trailing it, playing catch-up is a dangerous game.

Pete.

... and realised the hackers/malware/"Nasty Nations" don't even have to hack, they simply put the malicious information out there on the web to "steer" the AI (as it learns) to give the answers they want.

Now I'm really depressed. In fact I've got a pain in all the diodes down my left side.

I think I'll drink my self into oblivion.

Cheers, hic! Richard

[Colin Lindsay]

54 minutes ago, rlubikey said:

I think I'll drink my self into oblivion.

Now THERE was an excellent movie.

[JohnD]

1 hour ago, rlubikey said:

I was going to say, the problem is it might have been programmed by the same people who did the Post Office accounting system. 

But then I went on to read Pete's post:-

... and realised the hackers/malware/"Nasty Nations" don't even have to hack, they simply put the malicious information out there on the web to "steer" the AI (as it learns) to give the answers they want.

Now I'm really depressed. In fact I've got a pain in all the diodes down my left side.

I think I'll drink my self into oblivion.

Cheers, hic! Richard

Now THERE is a very good point (steering AIs).    But who has hold of the tiller?  Humans!   Even in  America (don't know about UK)  face recognition is biased towards white faces, because it's those that appear on the 'Net.    Bias perpetuates bias.

[dougbgt6]

1 hour ago, rlubikey said:

Now I'm really depressed. In fact I've got a pain in all the diodes down my left side.

 

35 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

Now THERE was an excellent movie.

It was most certainly NOT! The best portrayal of Marvin was on the BBC.

Doug