[KnowItAll]

We have a new solution in place -- designed to cut down on the "Nigerian" spam that we seem to attract in the classifieds section.

As of now, all IP addresses from Africa, Satellite Providers and about 500 known anonymous proxies are banned from GeoExpat.

I would like to belive we're the only expat site that has implemented this ..

[PDLM]

KIA,

Have you considered the impact of the 500 known anonymous proxies on people who are using the 'net from within China? Many of them have such proxies set up to get round the Great Firewall of China - even if this site is not blocked by the GFoC you are still making it a pain to access the site if they have to turn the proxy off every time they wish to do so...

[KnowItAll]

PDLM -- Not a priority right now.

Also most of these proxies are used and abused by email harvesters, spambots etc ... so overall, like the Americans say ... collateral damage.

[PDLM]

But you have Shenzhen forums?

[KnowItAll]

Yeah .. and I don't see how most legit users cannot access them.

The way I look at it, we've optimized for the greater good of 99% of our users.

By the way, even south africa is banned.

[texasaxel]

Can you explain if this impacts my ability to access this site from overseas internet cafes and airline lounges? How about if I use my own laptop and access the internet via broadband from a hotel room in South Africa?

[KnowItAll]

Texas : If you're in Africa .. yeah, you'd not be able to access the site.

Hotels / Internet cafes anywhere else should be ok.

Besides .. a temporary lack of access to geoexpat.com might just make you appreciate us a little bit more.

[KnowItAll]

I should add .. a number of connections from Israel might also get dropped to african internet cafes taking leased connections which terminate there.

[PDLM]

Originally Posted by KnowItAll

Texas : If you're in Africa .. yeah, you'd not be able to access the site.

Unless, of course, you can find a proxy that isn't on KIA's list, or VPN into somewhere else (perhaps your corporate network).

[texasaxel]

Originally Posted by PDLM

Unless, of course, you can find a proxy that isn't on KIA's list, or VPN into somewhere else (perhaps your corporate network).

The latter would be a possible work-around; I'm in Africa about four times a year and should be able to cope without this site for a few days.