Forums > MobyGames > Bot control on the front page?

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Plok (204746) on 10/18/2016 1:29 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

I just visited the main site index, and I had to click on one of those prove-you're-not-a-bot things. Did I do something wrong, or is it a global change? If it's the latter, I think the forums are a better place for this, as they're less intrusive and more vulnerable to spammers.

EDIT, 1 hour later: Just had a separate one on the forums, and I've been logged in the whole time, and it's even the same browser session. Huh.

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firefang9212 (81831) on 10/18/2016 3:47 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

Do you mean the CloudFlare captcha thing? I believe that only appears if you access the site from an ipv4 address. I encounter it on a lot of websites when I'm using Tor to bypass a local site filter.

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Plok (204746) on 10/18/2016 4:01 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

I don't think I've ever had an IPv6 address. This is the first time I'm facing this on MobyGames, and for some reason, I've been having those all afternoon on many different sites! And no, I don't use Tor.

EDIT: Further investigating, I think that some people have this when they use Tor, as you said. However, I stumbled upon this official CloudFlare support page. I checked my current IP with Project Honeypot, and I did see some disturbing data. A dictionary attack of 106 instances happened through that IP, albeit 1 year and 3 months ago, emails (total of 6) last sent 1 week ago, and spider activity from 3 months ago. I'm on a dynamic IP-hosting ISP, and they've recently expanded their IP range. The User Agent Strings do not comply with mine. Should I be worried?

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firefang9212 (81831) on 10/18/2016 4:50 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

There shouldn't be any need to worry. The fact that the user agent strings don't match means these attacks didn't come from your computer, but rather a different device or devices that where using the same ip address. You should be able to change your ip address, or contact your ISP to get them to change it for you if that is necessary. Try following the steps here.