Are Virginmedia blocking SayNoTo0870 ?

(rather OT for this group)

I perhaps think the former :-)

No.

I suggest you check dns (s/b 66.197.185.245) and then try ping and traceroute (tracert ?) which may shed light. Then try vm's support people.

It's quite likely that VirginMedia are running transparent proxies, so a trace that doesn't use port 80 will not be particularly valid. If they were filtering, they would do it in their transparent proxy.

Cross-posted and followups to uk.telecom, as more appropriate for 0870/1 issues.

(SayNoTo0870 is about saving money - hence on topic for uk.finance)

SayNoTo0870 does indeed translate to 66.197.185.245 on my machine - but an attempt to ping that IP times out. However, switching to a proxy server immediately restores the ping.

Very suspicious to me.

Thomas

These days, ICMP echo connectivity tells you very little about TCP connectivity, let alone web connectivity via a transparent proxy.

Anyway, who operates a ping proxy; it would be such a godsend to distributed denial of service attackers that it would get closed down or filtered off the net quite quickly.

Technical issues aside, there is a useful financial website that I am unable to connect to via my normal internet connection - even though this is a mainstream UK based site and I can establish that the site itself is not down. Friends and family also tell me that they can connect to the site.

OK, it may just be a coincidence but it seems very strange that this particular site would allow me to save money at the expense of the ISP that is unable to connect me.

As a matter of interest a tracert produces the following:-

Tracing route to saynoto0870.com [66.197.185.245] over a maximum of 30 hops:

5 8 ms 11 ms 8 ms man-bb-b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.1 87.178] 6 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms tele-ic-3-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43. 163.70] 7 22 ms 24 ms 25 ms linx.he.net [195.66.224.21] 8 106 ms 99 ms 99 ms 10gigabitethernet2-3.core1.nyc4.he.net [72.52.92 .77] 9 98 ms 96 ms 99 ms 10gigabitethernet1-2.core1.nyc1.he.net [72.52.92 .46] 10 95 ms 95 ms 96 ms vl0017.gwy03.sctn01.hostnoc.net [216.66.0.214] 11 91 ms 91 ms 91 ms ec1-22.gwy01.sctn01.hostnoc.net [96.9.191.33] 12 91 ms 95 ms 92 ms ec1-10.agg01.sctn01.hostnoc.net [64.191.19.6] 13 * * * Request timed out. 14 * * * Request timed out. 15 * * * Request timed out. 16 * * * Request timed out. 17 * * * Request timed out. 18 * * * Request timed out. 19 * * * Request timed out. 20 * * * Request timed out. 21 * * * Request timed out. 22 * * * Request timed out. 23 * * * Request timed out. 24 * * * Request timed out. 25 * * * Request timed out. 26 * * * Request timed out. 27 * * * Request timed out. 28 * * * Request timed out. 29 * * * Request timed out. 30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

I have just logged on, and the site appeared virtually instantaneously. I am on Virgin Media's adsl service. Have you tried

?

For my education, why remove the first 4 steps when your IP address is in the headers of your messages (unless you have spoofed it there)?

I too am on VM broadband (Blueyonder as was - or Cable London for those old enough to remember). My tracert is very similar to yours but ends differently with success:

12 102 ms 106 ms 146 ms ec1-10.agg01.sctn01.hostnoc.net [64.191.19.6] 13 104 ms 103 ms 116 ms server2.rhdns.com [66.197.185.245]

And I can also browse the site happily in both Firefox and IE8.

Have you altered your PC's or router's MTU or MSS sizes?

Some sites stupidly block connections using non-standard packet sizes.

I'm not aware of having made any such changes. However, it's not just my computer - non of the PC's (3 in all) on the router can access SayNoTo0870.com / co.uk. Not aware of any changes to the router either - though I haven't noticed any problems with other sites.

It is very strange, surely no UK company would start limiting access to legal web sites on an individual basis? I guess there must be some other explanation. Maybe I'll get in touch with Virginmedia tech support and see what they have to say.

Thanks Thomas

Yes, I get the same problem and same solution - i.e. switch to VPN and it works fine.

Thanks Thomas

Thanks Thomas

Could still be the router, I suppose. Do you know anyone else in the same neighbourhood who is on Virgin, if so what happens for them?

I'd say inaccessibility of a site was more 'support' than 'finance'. However....

I'm on vm cable, as it happens, and /don't/ have trouble with either the .com or the .co.uk names; both translate to the same IP anyway. AFAIAW vm have long since dropped their so-called transparent proxies; they do however offer an optional proxy. I've tried both ways (vm proxy and no proxy) and can find no problem. If you have access to a BSD box (I'm using freebsd), I think you'll find traceroute offers the option of using TCP probes on a fixed port number, so you could check reachability of the web server using that.

Now what exactly do you mean there? I'm not aware of any mechanism for proxying ICMP packets; indeed it would seem pointless, given their function. What /exactly/ are you doing?

As an outside bet, there is currently some commotion about vm and DPI; I wonder if you're a possible guinea pig? There's been talk about p2p and email being monitored by vm, I'm not sure about http. /If/ they're doing something like this, and /if/ you're one of the guinea pigs, and /if/ their kit is faulty, I'd imagine it could cause this sort of problem. Can any nearby vm users replicate this issue for you?

I'd suggest taking it up on vm.s.b.cable (assuming you're cable not adsl, btw! I don't recall seeing).

I mean I switch to Cisco VPN to connect into my company's intranet. When I do this, web servers see me coming in from the US West Coast - hence I see adveretisements on the BBC site etc. As I understand it VPN masks the IP address of the originating client.

Thanks for this advice

Thomas

I never switched to anything. I just Googled 'say no to 0870' and got options for the .com site and the .co.uk site and both worked. It seems everyone else is getting through okay so it seems more likely to be some feature of your computer rather than any conspiracy theory.

Ok, I took out the D-Link router and connected directly to the cable modem - problem solved. So now I at least know I'm not getting picked on :-)

Many thanks to everyone, sorry for the confusion!

Thomas

I'm on Virgin Media and twice I've had to tweak my MTU settings after finding that about 20% of sites suddenly stopped working. According to one forum it was something to do with an upgrade at the exchange.

As immoral and unethical Virgin Media are [1], I don't think they're at the stage of blocking sites they don't like just yet.

[1]

Thanks for this.

Thomas.

Have you had any luck in resolving the problem? I have exactly the same issue - cann access all the web sites I seem to need exceptsaynoto0870!!!

url: