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SoundCloud has banned VPN access

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Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#151

Post by dewey »

rsync wrote: post #45
lightyrs wrote: post #26

Last night I was blocked from HBOMAX (or whatever brand they go by these days) for being on a VPN. That was the first time I've ever encountered something like that on HBOMAX. I wonder if there is some coordinating event here.

Did the error condition actually call out "VPN use" ? Did the HBO UI actually call out, by that term, a VPN ? ... or were you simply using a VPN and that's the most likely culprit for a general failure of the service ? Genuinely curious ...

Having it spelled out as "Are you on a VPN?" on streaming services is pretty common these days. I guess with the popularity of consumer VPNs that term isn't just a technical one any more.

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#153

Post by vb-8448 »

tallytarik wrote: post #38
majorchord wrote: post #3

You can't just blanket block all VPN access, that's not how the internet works... they could pick some common/well-known providers of VPN services and block their IPs/ASN/etc., but you can't just flip a switch and make all forms of VPN/proxy stop working, as there's no way to tell with certainty that someone is using one.

There are plenty of VPN and proxy detection services, either as a service (API) or downloadable database, which are surprisingly comprehensive. Disclaimer: I’ve run one since 2017. Years on, our primary data source is literally holding dozens of subscriptions to every commercial provider we can find, and enumerating the exit node IP addresses they use. There are also other methods, like using zmap/zgrab to probe for…

just out of curiosity: if i'm located in spain and i setup an ec2 or digital ocean instance in germany and use it as a socks proxy over ssh, do you will detect me?

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#154

Post by raverbashing »

londons_explore wrote: post #134
taikahessu wrote: post #128

Ironically, I can't read the Reddit post with my VPN.

I'm pretty sure reddits reason for blocking VPN's is they want the AI scrapers to pay them for a data feed. They also block data center IP's

They block but they do allow you to browse if you're logged in

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#155

Post by szszrk »

jabroni_salad wrote: post #118
giancarlostoro wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that you mention it, I never used those, but I always did wonder how they do those.

Someone googles "free VPN" so they can watch region locked videos and now their connection is a part of that network too. They may or may not realize that this is the arrangement.

Or his kid uses a free game with a lot of grinding, not knowing that the child's phone is now technically part of a botnet.

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#156

Post by dizhn »

vb-8448 wrote: post #153
tallytarik wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of VPN and proxy detection services, either as a service (API) or downloadable database, which are surprisingly comprehensive. Disclaimer: I’ve run one since 2017. Years on, our primary data source is literally holding dozens of subscriptions to every commercial provider we can find, and enumerating the exit node IP addresses they use. There are also other methods, like using zmap/zgrab to probe for…

just out of curiosity: if i'm located in spain and i setup an ec2 or digital ocean instance in germany and use it as a socks proxy over ssh, do you will detect me?

That's a hosting service IP block. Some sites block them already. Netflix for instance.

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#158

Post by Analemma_ »

rendaw wrote: post #73
danpalmer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legislation. If a country requires age verification, identity verification, moderation, etc, it's easy enough to either block that traffic or enforce the local laws. However users can easily circumvent this with a VPN. For some countries, this traffic is still in scope, and so the only real way to prevent it is to block or impose the restrictions on all VPN users. Could also be spam/abuse prevention. Credential stuff…

Yeah, but age verification for _music_?

I'm guessing you're on the younger side and don't remember: there was an enormous moral panic about music in the 90s. There were ostensibly serious, sober Congressional hearings about it. Multiple people (e.g. Tipper Gore) made it their specific political hobbyhorse. It was the thing corrupting the youth, before the pivot to video games after Columbine. It's why we still have those black-and-white stickers on CDs (to the extent anyone buys CDs anymore).

I'd like to like that won't come back, but voting rights for women are back on the table, apparently, and SoundCloud is apparently worth age-gating, so I guess not.

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#159

Post by Liquix »

everdrive wrote: post #152

More will follow. I hope you collected what you need. For anything truly valuable, record the audio during playback and manually enter the metadata.

> record the audio during playback and manually enter the metadata

there are more elegant solutions similar to yt-dlp. scdl is very user friendly and automatically embeds metadata.

https://github.com/scdl-org/scdl

https://github.com/miraclx/freyr-js

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#160

Post by tallytarik »

vb-8448 wrote: post #153
tallytarik wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of VPN and proxy detection services, either as a service (API) or downloadable database, which are surprisingly comprehensive. Disclaimer: I’ve run one since 2017. Years on, our primary data source is literally holding dozens of subscriptions to every commercial provider we can find, and enumerating the exit node IP addresses they use. There are also other methods, like using zmap/zgrab to probe for…

just out of curiosity: if i'm located in spain and i setup an ec2 or digital ocean instance in germany and use it as a socks proxy over ssh, do you will detect me?

It won’t end up in our proxy detection database, but we track hosting provider ranges separately: https://www.iplocate.io/data/hosting-providers/
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