Aloha,
To safeguard the users of SMF forums; BotBanish has been installed to protect against DoS, bot and bad user attacks. If you have any issues with being locked out (white screen or Google screen) when using the Forum, you can contact us through the Randem Systems Support (https://randemsystems.support/) site. The rules are really simple; If one is seen to act like a bot, BotBanish will treat them as if they are a bot and terminate their usage of the site. Please make a note of contacts; for if you are locked out of our forum, you will most likely be locked out of the Randem System Support Site too.
Basic reasons for getting locked out:- Too many logon attempts.
This include going to the logon/registration page too many times without a successful logon.
Browser being refreshed too many time while on the login/registration page.
Automated browser plugins that attempt to fill in the login/registration page
Solution: Use the "Forgot Password" feature to retrieve your password.
- Using Tor (or similar browser).
Tor is a great browser for anonymity on the web, but unfortunately; bad actors will also use it to attack sites. The reason that they do this is because a Tor system changes the IP address about every 10 minutes so they can attack with impunity. Now if they do this on a protected site; the IP that they are using will get logged and possibly locked out. This is fine until the next Tor user gets this same IP address and find themselves locked out from the system that the other user was attacking. This will eventually happen and there is no way to stop this. This is the way anonymity works...
Solution: Refrain from using Tor or similar browsers on this site.
- Using automated tools on the forum.
A bot is just an automated tool. So if one has been detected to be acting like a bot would, one will be treated as such.
Solution: Disable browser plugins and extensions that attempt to automatically fill in fields on webpages.
- You have a Dynamic IP address that gets changed.
All ISP give out dynamic IP address to most user. If your lease on this IP address runs out; generally because the modem that connects to the ISP has been off for a while and they lost their lease on the IP address, they will be given a new IP address. If the new IP address is of a former attacker of websites they are already locked out. This usually does not happen.
Solution: Contact your administrator with the IP address and other forum user details and the IP can be un-locked.
How to know if you are locked out when attempting to access the forum:- You get redirected to the Google search page.
- You get a "403 Forbidden" error message.
How to know if you are blocked when attempting to access the forum:- You get an error 410 or Site Gone Away message.