Cloudflare Browser Check: China

Help Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by pinyin, Nov 10, 2016.

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  1. pinyin

    pinyin Savant (1,119) Sep 19, 2013 New York

    while trying to acces the forum from China I get constant browser errors because a service named cloudflare is checking my device to prevent a ddos attack. its nearly impossible to access the forum. never ran into this issue in past years. wondering if this is a new security feature of some sort, and if so why the bias against China?
     
    #1 pinyin, Nov 10, 2016
  2. drtth

    drtth Initiate (0) Nov 25, 2007 Pennsylvania
    In Memoriam

    One possibility is that you are/were encountering something put in place by the hosting service used by this site. The goal would be to prevent denial of service attacks against itself and/or it's clients when those attacks originate from within China, as they have in the past.

    http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/27/8299555/github-china-ddos-censorship-great-firewall

    Another possibility is that what you are encountering is actually something put in place by the Chinese government which is interested in preventing it's own citizens from viewing certain web sites.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China

    The internet is a strange place in some ways and the messages you get back from web sites aren't always what they seem to be.
     
    #2 drtth, Nov 10, 2016
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2016
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  3. pinyin

    pinyin Savant (1,119) Sep 19, 2013 New York

    i dont think its the chinese firewall because ive only had the issue on this website. no other us based urls.

    im guessing that perhaps since the recent site overhaul that maybe a new hosting company may be using additional dns software to filter and log mac addresses of site visitors.
     
    #3 pinyin, Nov 10, 2016
  4. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    I've removed the bug tag, because this isn't one. It's an intentional check due to the high volume of malicious bots, users and activity received from China. It's been in place for quite a while now too.
     
    #4 Todd, Nov 10, 2016
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  5. dbrauneis

    dbrauneis Grand High Pooh-Bah (8,071) Dec 8, 2007 North Carolina
    Mod Team BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Having travelled to China several times over the years, I have definitely seen issues like this with specific sites that have been blocked by the Chinese Firewall (I know this was the case because I could access these sites if I went through my corporate VPN). Can't remember if BA was blocked or not at this point but I do remember that IMDB was...
     
    #5 dbrauneis, Nov 11, 2016
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  6. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Note: This a rule that we setup for our firewall. It has nothing to do with restrictions put in place by the Chinese government.
     
    #6 Todd, Nov 11, 2016
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