Is Three Ireland now filtering content???

omelette

Hi. My Wireless ISP is 'Three' and up till now have been quite happy with their service. However, just last night I noticed one particular thread at the below link was inaccessible - no "ACCESS DENIED" or the like, just your normal 'loading...' that never completes - Anyway, today I checked again, same problem. So out of curiosity, I tried accessing the thread via a proxy server - it loads first-time, every time! Whereas irrespective of how many times I try, I cannot view this one particular thread by the 'direct' route. Anyone interested can try for themselves, just go to the site and search for the "Liquid Nitrogen Engine" thread.

http://www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/

If this turns out to be the case, though I still have a few month left in my contract with them, we will then be parting company...

PogMoThoin

Correction, 3 don't do wireless and they aren't really an ISP, they do mobile 3g internet and are a mobile phone company.

watty

It's likely that a "3" IP is blocked. 3 Ireland only use a few IPs and use a transparent proxy/Router to share each to 1000's of users simulataneously. If someone on "3" is banned from a thread or Forum, then you also will be blocked.

On www.techtir.ie I ban* 5 to 10 IPs a day, I try to ensure these are not all encompassing like IPs from Mobile Phone network, but mistakes happen.

Put your own IP into a spam checker...

1st go here to find your IP http://remote.12dt.com/

then paste that IP in 3rd box here
http://temerc.com/Check_Spammers/

If you show up as a spammer, it's because someone else on 3's network is a spammer.


Even though many ISPs use dynamic IPs, real ISP do give everyone actually online at the same time a different IP. Really good ISPs give you the same IP all the time.


*some bots eat a lot of bandwidth.
The big content bots even employ cheap humans to do the catchpa etc and then hand off the user name & email to the botnet to content spam automatically, I see the registration with Asian or African IP and then the spam has USA or Russian IP (mostly comcast USA).

Unlike email spam, a content spammer of a forum has to expose an IP address and working email address (to get the registration link). There are various Forum, Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress tools that allow you to report content spammers to central databases and check new registrations against a database. Even a small site with only a few 100's users and a few users a month will see up to 60 attempts a day to signup by content spammers. In one 6mth period I saw of 6000 failed attempts (due to automated database checking) and about 100 successful signups that had to be later deleted.


Find a real ISP

watty

My IP
Nope, it's not a spammer
Checking fSpamList ....
E-mail: Query skipped
IP: No matches found ....
Username: Query skipped
Checking StopForumSpam ....
E-mail: Query skipped
IP: No matches found ....
Username: Query skipped
Submit to: fSpamlist & StopForumSpam
Checking BotScout ....
E-mail: Query skipped
IP: No matches found ....
Username: Query skipped
Checking DNS Blacklists ....
ProjectHoneyPot: No matches found ....
Sorbs: No matches found ....
Sorbs (2): No matches found ....
Spamhaus: No matches found ....
SpamCop: No matches found ....
DroneBL: No matches found ....
AHBL: No matches found ....
Tornevall: No matches found ....
EFNet: No matches found ....
Tor: No matches found ....

omelette

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Correction, 3 don't do wireless and they aren't really an ISP, they do mobile 3g internet and are a mobile phone company.

Hi. Yes, I'm well aware it's a mobile company, so maybe "wireless" is incorrect - but they certainly provide an internet service...

omelette

watty wrote: »

It's likely that a "3" IP is blocked. 3 Ireland only use a few IPs and use a transparent proxy/Router to share each to 1000's of users simulataneously. If someone on "3" is banned from a thread or Forum, then you also will be blocked.

On www.techtir.ie I ban* 5 to 10 IPs a day, I try to ensure these are not all encompassing like IPs from Mobile Phone network, but mistakes happen.

Put your own IP into a spam checker...

1st go here to find your IP http://remote.12dt.com/

then paste that IP in 3rd box here
http://temerc.com/Check_Spammers/

If you show up as a spammer, it's because someone else on 3's network is a spammer.


Even though many ISPs use dynamic IPs, real ISP do give everyone actually online at the same time a different IP. Really good ISPs give you the same IP all the time.


*some bots eat a lot of bandwidth.
The big content bots even employ cheap humans to do the catchpa etc and then hand off the user name & email to the botnet to content spam automatically, I see the registration with Asian or African IP and then the spam has USA or Russian IP (mostly comcast USA).

Unlike email spam, a content spammer of a forum has to expose an IP address and working email address (to get the registration link). There are various Forum, Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress tools that allow you to report content spammers to central databases and check new registrations against a database. Even a small site with only a few 100's users and a few users a month will see up to 60 attempts a day to signup by content spammers. In one 6mth period I saw of 6000 failed attempts (due to automated database checking) and about 100 successful signups that had to be later deleted.


Find a real ISP

Hi. Yes, I'm aware (though not until after signing-up) that 3 share IP's - it's a real pain, especially as many IRC servers automatically ban me! Also, the likes of Rapidshare continually informing me that I'm already downloading a file when I'm not, is absolutely infuriating! And another annoyance is Google refusing access to patents info, complaining that I've been detected as a proxy, therefore probably an automated file-retrieval agent! These alone are good reasons not to use 3!

But what I posted about is completely different - I can access every thread at the link I posted, EXCEPT the one I noted. This can't have anything to do with the site (which I can access no problem) banning my IP. The one good thing about 3 is that the connection is fast - 250-300kb/s peak, and generally, fast & reliable - but content filtering is a no-no in my book...

Sponge Bob

They probably have a transparent proxy behind each of the 3 or 4 ip addresses they use, in fact up to 2008 they only had one for all their customers. Imagine are configured the same and only have 3 or 4 public IP addresses for all their customers.

In that transparent proxy there may well be a corrupt file and 3 will not refresh it for another month or two at least. Good luck getting any satisfaction from Mumbai

omelette

Yes, I have no doubt that they have very few IP addresses available. I'm also well acquainted with Mumbai, having had plenty of reasons in the last year to call them up! One thing I will say about their support service is that their staff seem content to chat to you all day on the phone, never seeming to be in a hurry - never were much help in the end most of the time! Another thing I should mention about their BB, getting a 'good' connection is getting harder and harder - for example it took about 10 connect-disconnect cycles today before I got any data being sent. It connects fine, it's just not possible to upload or download anything...

btw, anyone considering buying a phone from 3, would do well to heed the following story...

They called me out of the blue 2 weeks ago, enquiring would I be interested in a pre-pay phone, (similar to my current 02 setup) citing all the free credit that came with it. (75 euro - a half-truth, this you receive incrementally as you buy credit) After enquiring as to the make of phone, and being quite sure I was told a Nokia 'something', I decided 40 euro was reasonable and paid for it online. When it was couriered out a few days later, I was annoyed to find it was an "INQ", a make I had never heard of, irritated to discover all the crappy "social Networking" crap software it comes loaded with and whose options cannot even be removed from the screen, and infuriated when I realised the reception where I live is complete crap! Knowing how inept their call-service centre is, I instead opted to try their other listed option - email. After several days, I got a one-line email telling me to call their support-service! This I did, spent 30-40min. being passed around to 3 different people, explaining to each that I wanted a refund, before being told that I must speak to the girl who sold me the phone - but she was busy, and would call me in 15min. 2 hours later, she finally called! I told her about the refund request, she said she had to consult her manager, came back, said there was nothing they could do but offered to credit my broadband account to the sum of 5 euro! After pointing out that I was entitled to a refund within 14 days under European law, there was silence, was told that she had to consult her manager again! Back she came and it was surreal - she starts telling me what a great phone I had, how I was not losing anything as I had 75 euro credit, what a great gift it would make... - I almost had to scream at her that I was looking for a refund! Silence, then she said "well you better phone 1913" (customer-support) and was about to hang up until I really started bellowing at her! So she transferred me to another woman who after having to be told everything again after a moments pause asked, "so you don't want the phone because the reception is bad - let me transfer you to technical-support". I lost it at this stage but finally managed to convince her that I really wanted a refund! This process took another 15min. sim-card having to be disabled etc. So, even though I ended up paying a tenner to post it back and have yet to receive a refund, (10-14 working-days I'm told) I am rid of the damn thing, I've learnt a valuable lesson and seen 3 for the money-thirsty bloodsuckers they really are.

So the moral of the story, stay well clear of 3. Or if you do decide to get a phone from them, get it through a stockist, not online. That way, you can at least get a hassle-free refund if you don't like it. I actually first tried to get a refund from Carphonewarehouse, 3's authorised outlet, but was shown the door...

watty

It's illegal for them to charge carriage either way, if refund under distance selling. Court rulling
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2010/04/16/online_refunds/

omelette

Interesting ruling, but as I read it, they are not allowed to deduct "Delivery Charge" - 3 shipping the phone to me, in my case, by courier - whereas they are not obliged to refund costs to me for returning the phone - in my case, a tenner. Of course, had I also had to pay for their courier, it would have eaten up all of the 40 euro - I'd have ended up owing them money!

cgarvey

watty wrote: »

It's illegal for them to charge carriage either way, if refund under distance selling.

Completely incorrect. Careful, when dishing out legal advice!

trekkypj

I've signed up for a dedicated proxy service. It adds a module to your Firefox browser and with it enabled the three connection seems to work much, much better than without the proxy.

Absurd that this is the case but it works for me.

omelette

trekkypj wrote: »

I've signed up for a dedicated proxy service. It adds a module to your Firefox browser and with it enabled the three connection seems to work much, much better than without the proxy.

Absurd that this is the case but it works for me.

So you're another 3 user (or victim)? If this is the case, you didn't by chance try the thread at the link I posted above? - I'm really curious to know if they are actually filtering content or is this something else! I have just checked again and can confirm that for me, the thread "Liquid Nitrogen Engine" at the above link still will not load, whereas if I open the site via proxy servers, it loads fine...

watty

cgarvey wrote: »

Completely incorrect. Careful, when dishing out legal advice!

I should have read it more carefully, they are not obliged to cover your return shipping cost. Obviously if an expensive item you want insurance and registered delivery.

Though I'm not qualified to give any legal advice

trekkypj

omelette wrote: »

So you're another 3 user (or victim)? If this is the case, you didn't by chance try the thread at the link I posted above? - I'm really curious to know if they are actually filtering content or is this something else! I have just checked again and can confirm that for me, the thread "Liquid Nitrogen Engine" at the above link still will not load, whereas if I open the site via proxy servers, it loads fine...

I have visited the page - it didn't load first time for me but I refreshed and it loaded, albeit slowly. Could be on some of Three's proxies it works and some it doesn't.

Yes, I too am a hostage to 3 Ireland's 'midband' service. I have the dubious pleasure of living near a NBS mast.

I don't think they're deliberately filtering it. Mis-configured filters or badly set up servers, on the other hand... let's be kind and say they tend to let technical issues build up and because mostly you are routed to a Mumbai call centre, it's a pain to get across to them what is actually wrong because they go through very rigid procedures and don't just listen when someone describes the actual problem. A lot of people with limited technical knowhow probably just give up in frustration.

When you know the problem is a misconfigured proxy on their server you don't want to have to wade through the checklist of (1) is it plugged in (2) is the light on (3) is the device recognised, and so forth. I want to talk to a techie, not a call centre person when I have an issue. I don't blame the guy I have to talk to in these circumstances - it's the system they have. Utterly pants in terms of efficiency or effectiveness.

Sadly, 3 Ireland, though they are the whipping-boys for many, are not the only ones guilty of this.

Also, 3's service would be so much better if they just quit trying to push all their traffic through the same few proxies. It just can't handle the load at peak times. The connection is fine but Three's servers just don't send the data at the speed needed when it's congested with requests.

That's why I use a paid proxy service. I know the connection will not be as fast sometimes when there's lots of people on locally, but at least I won't get timeout issues because Three's proxy fell over from overwork.

Ironically, any application not using port 80 or email ports seems to go fine - guess they don't get proxied like web pages.

watty

There are no "NBS" masts.
The NBS didn't pay for a single mast. They are Mobile Phone masts that will make 3 profit long after NBS is over.

trekkypj

watty wrote: »

There are no "NBS" masts.
The NBS didn't pay for a single mast. They are Mobile Phone masts that will make 3 profit long after NBS is over.

True but ours wouldn't have been put up otherwise.

watty

3 have to have a certain Geographic coverage to meet their licence conditions. It would be impossible to know if ANY of the recent additions would have been there or not in absence of NBS.

trekkypj

I know for a fact that we wouldn't have mobile phone coverage otherwise. There's zero coverage apart from one bar of O2 GPRS on the top of the hills in my area.

3 may not be the best but they give us 5 bars coverage. Pity their internet 'solution' is so..... inadequate.

watty

Unless you are a 3 Director, you can't know it for a fact.

trekkypj

watty wrote: »

Unless you are a 3 Director, you can't know it for a fact.

Very well, I concede that

I can opine, to a high degree of likelihood, that our village would have no mobile coverage whatsoever otherwise.

omelette

trekkypj wrote: »

I have visited the page - it didn't load first time for me but I refreshed and it loaded, albeit slowly. Could be on some of Three's proxies it works and some it doesn't.

Yes, I too am a hostage to 3 Ireland's 'midband' service. I have the dubious pleasure of living near a NBS mast.

I don't think they're deliberately filtering it. Mis-configured filters or badly set up servers, on the other hand... let's be kind and say they tend to let technical issues build up and because mostly you are routed to a Mumbai call centre, it's a pain to get across to them what is actually wrong because they go through very rigid procedures and don't just listen when someone describes the actual problem. A lot of people with limited technical knowhow probably just give up in frustration.

When you know the problem is a misconfigured proxy on their server you don't want to have to wade through the checklist of (1) is it plugged in (2) is the light on (3) is the device recognised, and so forth. I want to talk to a techie, not a call centre person when I have an issue. I don't blame the guy I have to talk to in these circumstances - it's the system they have. Utterly pants in terms of efficiency or effectiveness.

Sadly, 3 Ireland, though they are the whipping-boys for many, are not the only ones guilty of this.

Also, 3's service would be so much better if they just quit trying to push all their traffic through the same few proxies. It just can't handle the load at peak times. The connection is fine but Three's servers just don't send the data at the speed needed when it's congested with requests.

That's why I use a paid proxy service. I know the connection will not be as fast sometimes when there's lots of people on locally, but at least I won't get timeout issues because Three's proxy fell over from overwork.

Ironically, any application not using port 80 or email ports seems to go fine - guess they don't get proxied like web pages.

Excuse the delay in responding, I appreciate you checking out the link!

I am surprised (and a little paranoid now!:eek:) that you can access that thread - having just tried again (half a dozen times) there is no way I can enter it! (Liquid Nitrogen Engine) As I said, every other thread on that site loads instantly, except that one. And again, via a proxy server, it loads straight away. How one can 'accidently' configure a proxy server to not load precise URL's on a server is quite beyond me. Then again, I don't know a lot about proxy server configuration...

@all - Though I'm switching over to o2 for BB when my contract expires, I was surprised to note that in Clare at least they are still putting up masts - last year almost no reception, last week, max signal strength. But even there, the data-flow varies - goes from maxing out at about 3M/s to no data at all for up to 5min, before starting working again. Not acceptable...

watty

A characteristic of Mobile. It's a phone network. Phone calls make x100 to x300 the profit and also have priority as the mast can support very few data users.

trekkypj

watty wrote: »

A characteristic of Mobile. It's a phone network. Phone calls make x100 to x300 the profit and also have priority as the mast can support very few data users.

Indeed. It makes my blood boil that they are permitted, nay encouraged, to sell it as 'broadband'.

:rolleyes: