The request data your computer makes to web servers includes your IP address. Servers that deny based on location use a lookup service to check which ISP your IP address belongs to. A VPN or proxy...
The request data your computer makes to web servers includes your IP address. Servers that deny based on location use a lookup service to check which ISP your IP address belongs to. A VPN or proxy will hide your origin IP by relaying your network traffic or HTTP messages, respectively, through another computer - which is why they’re useful for evading that type of blocking.
E: there are also other strategies like triangulation by measuring response time to servers in different regions but that sorta stuff is way more rare than IP blocking.
If anyone’s wondering “what if I just gave them the wrong IP?”, there are a few things getting in your way. You’re not adding in your IP for fun against your will. It’s the return address for the...
The request data your computer makes to web servers includes your IP address
If anyone’s wondering “what if I just gave them the wrong IP?”, there are a few things getting in your way.
You’re not adding in your IP for fun against your will. It’s the return address for the data you’re requesting. Your browser asks “please give me this webpage”. The server sees that request and needs to know who to send the page to.
The computers between you and the server hosting the web page will know what types of IPs incoming messages can come from. Your ISP has the first computers in that chain. Because they’re the one assigning you an IP they know exactly what your address should be.
A VPN gets around this because it’s a smarter message forwarder. It is set up to construct an additional layer around your messages. That layer indicates to your ISP and all computers between you and the VPN host that actually all messages from your computer go to the VPN. Then your VPN unwraps the message, attaches its own address as the return address, and sends it to the server hosting the web page.
Really this use of a VPN is a proxy and not a traditional VPN. A traditional VPN will do the layering but will inject your messages into a mesh of firewalled computers instead of the open Internet.
Actually (picture nerdy "ackshually" guy)... a VPN as defined is a very simple "connect this device (or network) to a different network" effectively "just a proxy". The "mesh" and all that stuff...
Really this use of a VPN is a proxy and not a traditional VPN. A traditional VPN will do the layering but will inject your messages into a mesh of firewalled computers instead of the open Internet.
Actually (picture nerdy "ackshually" guy)... a VPN as defined is a very simple "connect this device (or network) to a different network" effectively "just a proxy". The "mesh" and all that stuff is what "VPN products" that you purchase (like nord and etc) access to usually add on. Like the difference between git and github.
Good overview! To add an additional technical detail, there's an IETF standard (RFC 8805) which is the spec for how IP address owners can publish a mapping from IP range to location. Tech...
Good overview! To add an additional technical detail, there's an IETF standard (RFC 8805) which is the spec for how IP address owners can publish a mapping from IP range to location. Tech companies may also be able to correlate IP address with other locations signals used with them (language, device location APIs, etc). The combination of the two means IP geolocation can be pretty accurate. To test, if you do a search for 'X near me' in a new incognito window you may be surprised at how relevant the results are.
I have this issue occasionally with accessing some American websites from Europe (usually bc they don't want to bother trying to comply with GDPR) and it seems to be based on IP address. When it's...
I have this issue occasionally with accessing some American websites from Europe (usually bc they don't want to bother trying to comply with GDPR) and it seems to be based on IP address. When it's something important a VPN works as a solution.
Somehow it seems so critical to me that information is available globally to make sure you can get all the aspects of a story or information you need for research. Blocking it seems to disconnect...
Somehow it seems so critical to me that information is available globally to make sure you can get all the aspects of a story or information you need for research. Blocking it seems to disconnect large swathes of information from a lot of people. Freedom of information is more important in a world that has a tendency to more and more polarize.
Another way to think about it is that publishing information for anyone in the world to read is a big responsibility, if you take it seriously. If it’s important, you need to handle mobile and...
Another way to think about it is that publishing information for anyone in the world to read is a big responsibility, if you take it seriously. If it’s important, you need to handle mobile and desktop, it needs to be translated into multiple languages, and accessibility needs to be handled. You might want to add content warnings. Complying with the regulations of countries on the far side of the world is an additional responsibility.
It’s not wrong to just opt out of that and publish information for a private audience. Similarly, some people just want to publish things for people in a local organization or for people in the same town.
It’s also not wrong to publish things on an “as-is” basis, allowing people to read them who aren’t your target audience, if they can. If they don’t understand the language or the cultural context, or their system doesn’t support the format, too bad. I think that’s closer to the spirit of the web when it started. The web wasn’t a place to post things for everyone because everyone having Internet access wasn’t expected.
But the bargain between writers and their audience has gotten muddled. If you publish something on the web, the link will be shared in some random forum and there will be complaints from people who think that random strangers should cater to their needs.
Generally, they block based on the IP address of the incoming request. Different IP ranges are assigned to particular geographical regions, and then to individual ISPs, so they can usually guess...
Generally, they block based on the IP address of the incoming request. Different IP ranges are assigned to particular geographical regions, and then to individual ISPs, so they can usually guess what city you are in or near. That's also how those "Hot girls in (your city) need YOU" ads work.
In addition to geographical restrictions, sometimes an IP range is temporarily blocked if a large number of suspicious connections have come out of it recently.
As others said, it is usually based on your source IP, but how exactly your IP gets mapped to a given country or region can vary from business to business. There are services which this offer this...
As others said, it is usually based on your source IP, but how exactly your IP gets mapped to a given country or region can vary from business to business. There are services which this offer this mapping to other businesses, but there are several such services, and they may not be consistent with each other.
As for reasons, each business would have its own reasons, but some that come to mind:
they have a fraud problem from a country in a proportion significantly higher than in their main regions of business, so they accept the losses of false positives (innocent customers from the blocked country) in order to mitigate the costs of allowing the fraud to come through
laws in the blocked country somehow prevent or make unprofitable business dealings between the two regions
their main product or service is in meatspace, and really only is useful to a given region of the world; or that they would prefer or expect customers in the target country to visit a different website which is local to that region. One might expect one country's site to redirect smoothly to another's, but the sites could be managed by totally different teams that don't communicate or coordinate with one another
For example, some non-EU websites that don't profit from EU visitors don't think it's worth the money to comply with GDPR, so they just block any connections from there. At least I remember some...
laws in the blocked country somehow prevent or make unprofitable business dealings between the two regions
For example, some non-EU websites that don't profit from EU visitors don't think it's worth the money to comply with GDPR, so they just block any connections from there. At least I remember some US news sites doing that when GDPR first came out.
The request data your computer makes to web servers includes your IP address. Servers that deny based on location use a lookup service to check which ISP your IP address belongs to. A VPN or proxy will hide your origin IP by relaying your network traffic or HTTP messages, respectively, through another computer - which is why they’re useful for evading that type of blocking.
E: there are also other strategies like triangulation by measuring response time to servers in different regions but that sorta stuff is way more rare than IP blocking.
If anyone’s wondering “what if I just gave them the wrong IP?”, there are a few things getting in your way.
A VPN gets around this because it’s a smarter message forwarder. It is set up to construct an additional layer around your messages. That layer indicates to your ISP and all computers between you and the VPN host that actually all messages from your computer go to the VPN. Then your VPN unwraps the message, attaches its own address as the return address, and sends it to the server hosting the web page.
Really this use of a VPN is a proxy and not a traditional VPN. A traditional VPN will do the layering but will inject your messages into a mesh of firewalled computers instead of the open Internet.
Actually (picture nerdy "ackshually" guy)... a VPN as defined is a very simple "connect this device (or network) to a different network" effectively "just a proxy". The "mesh" and all that stuff is what "VPN products" that you purchase (like nord and etc) access to usually add on. Like the difference between git and github.
Good overview! To add an additional technical detail, there's an IETF standard (RFC 8805) which is the spec for how IP address owners can publish a mapping from IP range to location. Tech companies may also be able to correlate IP address with other locations signals used with them (language, device location APIs, etc). The combination of the two means IP geolocation can be pretty accurate. To test, if you do a search for 'X near me' in a new incognito window you may be surprised at how relevant the results are.
I have this issue occasionally with accessing some American websites from Europe (usually bc they don't want to bother trying to comply with GDPR) and it seems to be based on IP address. When it's something important a VPN works as a solution.
Somehow it seems so critical to me that information is available globally to make sure you can get all the aspects of a story or information you need for research. Blocking it seems to disconnect large swathes of information from a lot of people. Freedom of information is more important in a world that has a tendency to more and more polarize.
Another way to think about it is that publishing information for anyone in the world to read is a big responsibility, if you take it seriously. If it’s important, you need to handle mobile and desktop, it needs to be translated into multiple languages, and accessibility needs to be handled. You might want to add content warnings. Complying with the regulations of countries on the far side of the world is an additional responsibility.
It’s not wrong to just opt out of that and publish information for a private audience. Similarly, some people just want to publish things for people in a local organization or for people in the same town.
It’s also not wrong to publish things on an “as-is” basis, allowing people to read them who aren’t your target audience, if they can. If they don’t understand the language or the cultural context, or their system doesn’t support the format, too bad. I think that’s closer to the spirit of the web when it started. The web wasn’t a place to post things for everyone because everyone having Internet access wasn’t expected.
But the bargain between writers and their audience has gotten muddled. If you publish something on the web, the link will be shared in some random forum and there will be complaints from people who think that random strangers should cater to their needs.
FYI: that error page (and “edgesuite”) is from Akamai, one of the biggest content delivery networks.
Generally, they block based on the IP address of the incoming request. Different IP ranges are assigned to particular geographical regions, and then to individual ISPs, so they can usually guess what city you are in or near. That's also how those "Hot girls in (your city) need YOU" ads work.
In addition to geographical restrictions, sometimes an IP range is temporarily blocked if a large number of suspicious connections have come out of it recently.
As others said, it is usually based on your source IP, but how exactly your IP gets mapped to a given country or region can vary from business to business. There are services which this offer this mapping to other businesses, but there are several such services, and they may not be consistent with each other.
As for reasons, each business would have its own reasons, but some that come to mind:
For example, some non-EU websites that don't profit from EU visitors don't think it's worth the money to comply with GDPR, so they just block any connections from there. At least I remember some US news sites doing that when GDPR first came out.