Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SoundCloud has banned VPN access

old.reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 222 posts

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#71

Post by addandsubtract »

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…

Tangent: if you hold access to all VPN providers, have you thought about also releasing benchmarks for them? I would be interested in knowing which ones offer the best bandwidth / peering (ping).

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#72

Post by russelg »

bird0861 wrote: post #60

stares in Lidarr

Doesn't really fulfill the same niche Soundcloud does. Most content on SC is non-commercial or just simply not available on any streaming service.

Lidarr relies on people ripping this music, and also adding the metadata to Musicbrainz, which just simply isn't going to happen for most SC uploads.

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#73

Post by rendaw »

danpalmer wrote: post #10
prosody wrote: post #9

What's the motivation for blocking VPN read access for this and other services? Are AI scrapers using commercial VPNs to get around rate limiting?

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_?

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#74

Post by voltagexd »

xfeeefeee wrote: post #2

Over five years of paid SoundCloud here, I thought something was wrong with my setup. If this continues I'll have to cancel, basically. What a pain.

same here. been a paying customer for 2 years, a soundcloud listener for 5+. this is where i switch back to downloading music off russian pirate websites.

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#75

Post by acka »

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…

> 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.

Assuming your VPN identification service operates commercially, I trust that you are in full compliance with all contractual agreements and Terms of Service for the services you utilize. Many of these agreements specifically prohibit commercial use, which could encompass the harvesting of exit node IP addresses and the subsequent sale of such information.

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#76

Post by [deleted] »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #59
vpShane wrote: post #53

Should be interesting to see how the internet blocks those of us who don't want to be fingerprinted, ID'd, or reveal our home IP addresses. YouTube already blocks embeds to login and prove I'm not a bot, funnily it doesn't work and embeds never play. Reddit will block me unless I'm signed in which I don't mind too much, but the daily beast and many others block me which is a shame because I'm a real human being using…

>block those that don't -- such as loading a page and immediately commenting or doing things that normal humans don't do, they block IP addresses and ASNs. As someone who has both spent quite a bit of time writing scrapers and later lots of headache on blocking malicious bots from accessing websites, I can tell you this has become futile. Bot makers aren't stupid. If you put in a check for how fast actions are perfor…

[deleted]

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#78

Post by ranger_danger »

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…

This will also cause problems with anyone that happens to (even accidentally/unknowingly) use apps that integrate services from companies such as BrightData/Luminati/HolaVPN/etc. where they sell idle time on your device/connection to their VPN/proxy customers.

The legitimate end-user will then no longer be able to use e.g. SoundCloud.

Re: SoundCloud has banned VPN access

#80

Post by pixel_popping »

alex-robbins wrote: post #56
gruez wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Across 3 VPN providers I use, none of them have issues accessing reddit anonymously. There are nodes/regions that are blocked, but finding a working server isn't hard.

Care to name them? I use Mullvad, and I love them, but their exit nodes are routinely blocked by Reddit and streaming services.

Mostly VPNs that don't show their infrastructure publicly (or at least their IP pools) seem to be working across Reddit.
Post reply on HN