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Site Questions
1

I am constantly getting message site blocked

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2

I keep getting this message as well, if it continues I will stop paying for the site.

3

We’re working on it. Something to do with AI. Should be temporary but sorry about the inconvenience

4

Howdy, everyone. Happy New Year!

First off, huge apologies for the incessant blocking screen. Over the past few months, AI bots have gotten “smarter” and those nefarious people who like to use AI bots to do bad things have gotten a major upgrade thanks to AI in their back pockets.

The only way we’ve been able to reasonably prevent the site from being hacked is to create very strict rules around repeated login attempts, IP addresses, geolocation information, stolen usernames and emails, and so forth.

I know this all sounds very technical, and honestly, we all just want the site to just “work” regardless of “how” to make it happen.

Without going too technical in this post, here is what we’re going to do.

  1. We’re going to loosen some blocking rules.
  2. We will be refining the login process.
  3. We will be leveraging a data store of known bot networks to block them more aggressively.
  4. Putting more “Hey, are you a human” questions into the login flows.
  5. And…some other little R&D items that might polish it all off.

However, we also need help from our community here to make sure things go smoothly and for continued patience. Some things that will affect everyone (for the better) will be

  1. We will start requiring two-factor authentication (2FA) or Passkeys to login starting very soon. This alone should help tremendously, but it adds an extra step for everyone with a login. The way I see it, is that it is better to have a very small inconvenience than have the robots take our all stuff.
  2. It is very likely that we will require stronger passwords and in the same vein as Google, force a relogin every so many weeks.
  3. If an account hasn’t logged in after a year it will go into a suspended status until the account is confirmed to be still active. If not confirmed, it will be deleted (unless it is a PFB+ Member). This is generally industry standard.
  4. Probably some other unknowns that might pop up.

I have a personal ask, just a favor, that if anything strange pops up, please @ me here for now. I’ll also create a “bug report” page for us so that the process can smoother.

My goal, as a technologist, is to create software to meet the user (that is all of us) where we are and not force us unnecessarily into poor user experiences. There is always a balance of risk and usability, along with good user experience and safety.

If you keep getting locked out, please message me directly, provide your IP address (https://whatsmyip.com) and I’ll get your account cleared. Thanks for hanging in there with us as we keep fighting off Skynet.

Mac

5

Thanks for the update. I have continuously had this block - initially only for the main board, but now getting it for the chamber more frequently - especially the last few days.

6

Thanks for the response I hope you outsmart the AI demons.