How does one ban an IP address?

[BVS1970]

I am confused i thought with DHCP the ip's are dynamic and always changing what gives?

[TheTerrorist_75]

Dynamic IPs can be slow to change. You may be stuck with your present IP for some time before it changes. You can attempt to reboot your modem/router to force a change. Banning doesn't always involve just your IP.

[Pete_C]

http://www.whatismyip.com/

Many sites to check your current IP.

Most ISPs do change your IP periodically even if you have an "always on " connection like DSL or Cable Broadband.

Sometimes, disconnecting your modem, waiting five minutes and reconnecting will give you a new IP, but more often than not they will identify your modem by its MAC address and then assign it the same IP it had before.

They give dynamic IPs for two major reasons. One is that they can then charge extra for giving you a static IP which they guaranty will remain the same. The other is that by occasionally changing your IP they can make it more difficult for you to run a server , which again they would prefer to host themselves and charge you extra for. ( Although they also make this difficult by giving you an Asynchronous connection where download speed vastly exceeds upload speed).

As noted, forums have more than one way to ban you, They can ban a specific IP or a whole range. They can limit the email servers they allow accounts to be registered from and ban by email account, username etc. There are many more criteria they can select to ban by.

Think you can hide behind a proxy? Not really, you are not anonymous, they can use fairly simple tricks to have your real IP detected from your end and placed in the site cookie that records your login or site visit and can set things to ban / block if the two do not match. Or they can just ban known common proxies.

Then there is the common misconception that the internal IP address assigned by your router does something. No, it is not externally detectable, but that does not matter, they are blocking the IP address assigned to your modem/router by your ISP not your internal IP address assigned through DHCP by your router to your computer.

[isteve]

Hey Pete I don't think ISPs use DHCP just because they can then charge for a static ip, although it is a added perk. With DHCP they can in theory have more users then addresses. But I think they use DHCP so they don't have to manually assign ip's and then remove them from the address pool.

[Pete_C]

Basically yes;

The whole having more users than IP addresses was more a deal of the dial up networking days when not everyone was connected at any given time. If they figured that they never had more than half the customers connected, they could just lease half as many IP addresses as they had customers and assign you a different one each time you connected.

But today most people have broadband that they leave always connected (always on) with the modem connected to the cable or phone line and powered up and a router set to maintain the connection. Thus they no longer have as much leeway . Sure there are some people who still turn off their modem when not in use (I only disconnect mine when there is a severe thunderstorm in the area) and some who have only one computer and use it to tell the modem to connect; but that is a rarity. Now most service providers need to have as many IP addresses leased as they have customers.

[BVS1970]

Makes sense thanks for the info

I have another question, why do we have to change the SSID and name and password of our router?

If a hacker does not know the WPA key, how can they get on the network anyhow?

[Pete_C]

Makes sense thanks for the info

I have another question, why do we have to change the SSID and name and password of our router?

If a hacker does not know the WPA key, how can they get on the network anyhow?

Okay, remember how I said a webmaster could put a hidden script on a page to check and see what your real IP address was if you go to a site through a proxy, and load it into the cookie for that site and then upload the cookie to them?

Well a malicious webmaster or hacker could put a similar script hidden on a malicious web page, and it will try to login to your router admin control panel using the standard admin name and passwords for standard models. It can spew threw them all in a fraction of a second. If you do not change the admin name and password it is fairly simple for them to have full access to your router. They can then disable its stateful packet inspection hardware firewall, change the dns server settings in the router from "obtain automatically form ISP" to a DNS server of their choice (their own, so they can block you from access to antivirus scanner and removal tool sites, redirect your google searches through a provider that pays them money, redirect dead links etc). They can do much more if they gain access and control and they do not need the WPA key, because you are already connected using it. In other words, they are not hacking you from outside, they are exploiting you from within to get even more access even more easily.

Once they have control of your router, they can then take advantage of exploits which require the user to be on your home network, many of these go unpatched because people think "hey the means they have to be in my house" but no, they can enable a Virtual Private Network connection through your router once they have control and pretend to be another computer in your house and have full access and control of your computer by taking advantage of these unpatched flaws.

[BVS1970]

Wow you really know your stuff

So is this more or less how War Driving works?

[Pete_C]

No, wardriving generally is just roaming around looking for unprotected networks; or in the extreme for those who use the old less than secure WEP instead of modern WPA and WPA2 standards.

[marsh_0x]

Hi Pete

I'm still a little too jumpy to let the cat out of the bag because of chasing a G4 stalker lawsuit, too much invested to blow it.

Bet you might know who is.

A different case 4 years ago, another poster used my account at G4 (sorry for swearing) Mike was only able to give me the ISP login from an hour away.

Futile effort until IT logged off was, solved by my password change.

This case, clear cookies and the cache.

Sure hope I don't contribute to wrong.

haha how many times would I wish to do more poll voting on an issue, but for testing purpose only...