Ask HN: Why does Hacker News block me when I visit with a VPN?

Posted by hellofunk on Saturday December 16, 2017 @11:11AM
from the ask-hn dept.

Is this new behavior, and if so, why? I'm surprised that at site with the content of HN would not be sympathetic to VPN connections. I now get this error [0] when I try to visit with my VPN.

The VPN is PIA, same as I've used for years, never an issue on HN before. I have to turn it off to view the site now.

[0] https://imgur.com/a/Ez2MR

( 6 comments | 9 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: Why does Hacker News block me when I visit with a... by ColinWright on Saturday December 16, 2017 @11:45AM (#15940262)

From: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

  > Please don't post on HN to ask ... us
  > something. Instead, please send it to
  > [email protected].

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Why does Hacker News block me when I visit with a... by staunch on Saturday December 16, 2017 @02:40PM (#15941480)

My guess is that HN banned PIA's shared VPN gateway IP address(es) by mistake. A large number of users making requests from the same IP(s) can look like abuse.

There's an unban feature, visit:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/unban?ip=<your public IP>

You can search "ip" to see what your current public IP is.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Why does Hacker News block me when I visit with a... by useranme on Saturday December 16, 2017 @07:09PM (#15943062)

HN seems to also treat connections from Tor differently. If I visit HN from Tor and click on "login" HN pretends it takes forever to establish a connection. But if I first click on an existing HN link and then login, then pages load ok. HN could do better to protect the privacy of its users.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Why does Hacker News block me when I visit with a... by j_s on Monday December 18, 2017 @07:09AM (#15951089)

This may be a CloudFlare feature, which you can bypass.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13719366

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Why does Hacker News block me when I visit with a... by lovelearning on Saturday December 16, 2017 @11:53PM (#15944195)

If voting abuse is the problem, HN should allow access to content and discussions, and disable only actions like voting and flagging.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Why does Hacker News block me when I visit with a... by mkempe on Saturday December 16, 2017 @01:04PM (#15940743)

You're not alone in experiencing a similar issue on HN while using a VPN.

[ Parent | on HN ]