21–29 of 29 posts
Just curious -- if a country didn't want a site to be seen, why would they rate-limit it instead of just blocking connections completely? Is that a thing countries do, like if they want to "punish" a site while retaining plausible deniability?
I have seen this actually happen IRL
Other times, they'll allow for bursts but sustained get rate limited - these can be detected just the same depending on their approach; if it's per connection (and not IP) you may have to find a big file to download.
It also helps to establish that traffic to other sites is not rate limited, and to use 3rd party checkers that check for connection rate across the globe. Or DIY and spin up a bunch of EC2 machines that are geographically diverse.
The thing about rate limits is, there are often hard limits. Try querying the site a bunch and see what the data transfer rate is. if it's consistently incapable of going above say, 128K/sec, you've got your rate limit. Other times, they'll allow for bursts but sustained get rate limited - these can be detected just the same depending on their approach; if it's per connection (and not IP) you may have to find a big f…
I can definitely notice an improvement in performance when I use a VPN, however it would be cool to see where things are being delayed. Is traceroute or curl something that could help here?
I ran a curl test and noticed that the TCP connect time is where things are getting hung up, taking over 80 seconds! Does anyone know if this is indicative of deliberate rate limiting or just a bad peering connection?
for example, stateful firewalls can only track a certain number of connections. If you don't have a public IP, or if they are trying to protect you, it may be necessary to wait for a connection resource to come available. Connections are generally expensive, different from data transfer, for these and other reasons, such as port starvation, syn flood defenses inappropriately targeting you, so many others.
Have some fun at the same time: 1) get a vpn account (proton, other) 2) hack your worst enemy's wifi with your favourite tools 3) while outside your enemy's home, boot a linux live distro 4) change your computer's name to your enemy's name 5) connect to the enemy's wifi 6) try to visit all the sites banned by your country 7) insult your country's leader in a public forum using your enemy's name 8) test the speed of t…
Just curious -- if a country didn't want a site to be seen, why would they rate-limit it instead of just blocking connections completely? Is that a thing countries do, like if they want to "punish" a site while retaining plausible deniability?
Yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22541960 I have seen this actually happen IRL
Have some fun at the same time: 1) get a vpn account (proton, other) 2) hack your worst enemy's wifi with your favourite tools 3) while outside your enemy's home, boot a linux live distro 4) change your computer's name to your enemy's name 5) connect to the enemy's wifi 6) try to visit all the sites banned by your country 7) insult your country's leader in a public forum using your enemy's name 8) test the speed of t…
If implemented with respect to the http code, it should say 429 in the developer console.