A whole African ISP’s range ban!

Category: Make-up worldtravel diary — Author: Alexander, @ November 27, 2009, 3:48 am
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I was very busy lately.

My Australian model Victoria Franco wrote me today. She said that it ain’t that bad to work hard.

“When u are working heaps just think of the money and think that the money can get you to travel more eventually when u feel like leaving work”

… that’s what she said too. Which I think is cute! Also amazing how this girl can switch just about anything into a positive thinking pattern.

And I thought that >> I << was good with that stuff. :-/

Block IP’s list

Before you read further, here is a block whole africa ip’s list (if that’s what you googled on after all). Copy and paste it into your .htaccess if you want to ban them from your sites too. Alternatively, you can redirect them (ErrorDocument 403 line) to your favorite spam site, think of the links Viagra spammers send you for instance, so they spam each other. It’s fun, trust me! :))

Block Bad Bots list

And here is the bad bots list (that I used) if you want to ban those as well. Just in case you visited this page for that list…

If you still have no idea what I’m talking about, or you DO have an idea but you have nothing better to do and you seek some inspiration in order to play the game manually, click then forward. Only introduction is in Dutch, the rest is all in English. And it’s all damn real!

… yes, I was the one playing Scooby Doo’s character there. *sigh*

Get rid of a$$holes!

However, my recent Internet works - made me think of another story, that goes a while back this time as well.

There was a guy at my home some half year ago or so, when I left the Netherlands, to travel around the world. The price he had to pay (in order to stay in my home) was as twice as low as what he’d pay for the same house anywhere else in the center of the city, as it wasn’t about profit to me, but just about covering the costs (rent, gas, water and electricity) and the fact that I preferred someone staying at my place while I’m away.

He said he had his own business and things were going well, he even offered to pay me 3 months ahead back then, for which I said, it wasn’t necessary: “If you pay each month - on time, it’s good enough for me. Just make sure you pay!”

A month later (while I was in India), this dude figured out: “Alex is on the other side of the world, so I can live at his place FOR FREE.. no way he’s gonna break such an important trip and come back to the Netherlands in order to kick me out… so, why should I pay?! And by the time he’s back at the end of his trip, I’ll be gone anyway.. So for now, whooohoooo, party time!”

Big mistake!
True, I didn’t (have to) come back, I kicked his a$$ with my remote.

After the 4th warning that was sent to him, the guy even called me (amazingly, he used my own home phone!) to India with an attempt to argue with me, but I hung up and didn’t give him a chance to make my costs even higher. Then I dialed a couple of numbers myself and hired two big dudes the very same day, who paid him a visit and delivered him “peacefully” my letter. So, he left my home before the night fall. These hired dudes obviously made an impression. ;-)

However, the same “making impression” guys did cost me a couple of bucks though, but I’d rather spend some money and sleep peacefully, then having an a$$hole on mind - and in my home, while I’m on a such beautiful world trip!

So, then there came a question from a friend: “Don’t u feel bad kickin’ him on a street together with his wife and kid?”
And I said: “No! The same as me, he had 4 weeks time to think about it. It wasn’t me kickin’ his wife and kid on a street. He did it himself…. I kicked out only him, as I had a deal with him, not with his wife (whom I don’t know anyway)!”

Today, 7 months later, I still think the same.

Fighting 419-scam

Yet, it was another D-day today. Slightly different something, but comes down to almost the same dilemma..
Spam and scam dudes trying to destroy my Internet business or at least attempting to take some financial advantage while making my work impossible in the same time. It doesn’t matter to them if my business disappear, as they’ll just move on, making someones else life miserable…. kinda parasites.

So, today I just got sick of it. Separate IP and/or e-mail addresses bans on daily base, on two of my business sites, didn’t make sense anymore. Spend approximately an hour a day cleaning their garbage and banning them separately, but eughm… oh well, I figured out the following: these two of my business websites are entirely in Dutch, so these African suckers have nothing to seek on my business sites at all. Then there a big decision came: to ban the ISP’s from entire fuckin’ continent!

Do I feel bad or discriminative about it?
Hell NO!

As the matter of fact, I feel much better now - and so do the advertisers on my sites, who were sending me the alerts every day!

However, 419-Nigerian scammers are powerful. They are not Nigerian only, but an army of Internet cafe’s users, spread all over Africa, many other Asian - and even European countries. They can do their scam manually and they can use “Bad Bots”, and/or hide themself behind “proxy” servers while using both scam methods.

Sooooo, what I did today is, I banned all the IP range from entire (Africa) continent, more then 50 countries, thus all their ISP’s.

I also increased my “bad bots” list, so let’s see what the coming days are gonna bring.

Either way, I’ll rather invest my time in the coming workshops weekend and make-up in general. So, banning the suckers is definitely gonna spare me a plenty of time.

Never the less, the fight is not done yet. Many spammers and scammers are still out there, sending their spam and doing scam attempts from elsewhere. The next big ban candidates are ISP’s from: Hong-Kong, Russia, India and Indonesia.

I also consider banning all proxies IP’s. People doing (real) business on my websites, have no reason to be hidden behind proxies. As I don’t believe they are. The spammers and scammers are..

Photoshoot in Amsterdam

Anyways, here’s something more understandable and far more entertaining for my readers. ;-)
A photoshoot I had yesterday in Amsterdam, with Photographer Vincent Rijs and model: Jennifer.

Jennifer has the most beautiful hair I’ve seen in ages. No extensions or anything like that, whatsoever.. all natural.