Web Filtering in California

[brucekr]

Was in the People's Republic of California over the weekend for a wedding, and figured I'd browse the latest happenings on the ol' trusty NorthwestFirearms website, and it was blocked using my motel wifi. Then last night, was at the airport to come home and the airport wifi blocked it as well.
So ironically eerie to be in San Diego with all of these military installations 'protecting our freedom' within a handful of miles, and you can't even open a firearms forum on your computer.

I guess all of the extreme ultra-maga right wing neofascist hate mongering that goes on here has been noticed.

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[parallax]

Man, thats crazy!... wow. I used to run into this problem overseas depending on which country i was in, I used a VPN to get around it, never would have imagined this would have been a problem in U.S.A.... the future is not looking good.

 

[CamoDeafie]

Was in the People's Republic of California over the weekend for a wedding, and figured I'd browse the latest happenings on the ol' trusty NorthwestFirearms website, and it was blocked using my motel wifi. Then last night, was at the airport to come home and the airport wifi blocked it as well.
So ironically eerie to be in San Diego with all of these military installations 'protecting our freedom' within a handful of miles, and you can't even open a firearms forum on your computer.

I guess all of the extreme ultra-maga right wing neofascist hate mongering that goes on here has been noticed.

I'm not that surprised. It is likely that these WiFi networks filters sites with the word "firearms" and deem all sites with that word to be verboten from their customers/clients using their wifi. The Public Library wifi in Albany filters Ebay, Craigslist, online shops as well as Facebook but not firearms pages.

 

[brucekr]

I'm not that surprised. It is likely that these WiFi networks filters sites with the word "firearms" and deem all sites with that word to be verboten from their customers/clients using their wifi. The Public Library wifi in Albany filters Ebay, Craigslist, online shops as well as Facebook but not firearms pages.

That's what I thought at first, but actually I could connect to Palmetto State Armory, Midwest, etc. Northwest Firearms was the only one that was blocked.

 

[Nosferatu]

Never use open WiFi. Especially without a VPN.

 

[brucekr]

Never use open WiFi. Especially without a VPN.

I was using a VPN

 

[Nosferatu]

I was using a VPN

Now I'm curious. What service?

 

[uberguy]

That's what I thought at first, but actually I could connect to Palmetto State Armory, Midwest, etc. Northwest Firearms was the only one that was blocked.

I wonder if that order went from the FBI to the ISP (Internet Service Provider) community?

Re: using a VPN, did you try turning that off and get the same result?

 

[brucekr]

Now I'm curious. What service?

I use my work VPN more for encryption of network traffic than spoofing a location. At first I thought my company had blocked the website, because I could see them doing that, but once I got home, I now realize that's not the case.

 

[CamoDeafie]

That's what I thought at first, but actually I could connect to Palmetto State Armory, Midwest, etc. Northwest Firearms was the only one that was blocked.

Interesting.

 

[brucekr]

I wonder if that order went from the FBI to the ISP (Internet Service Provider) community?

Re: using a VPN, did you try turning that off and get the same result?

Same result

 

[uberguy]

I also use VPN, I asked because I just had a weird thing happen over the weekend. I retired to Oregon (wife is from OR) after 37 yrs in the Seattle area, subscriber and post comments to local articles on The Times.

I was making a couple of article comments over the weekend and they kept being flagged as "Spam subject to moderator review" even though they were clearly not so. After 3 such 'hits' I turned off VPN and it worked normally. That's why I was asking. I presume the VPN had defaulted to an off-shore country that triggered their software.

Such is 21st century life on The LEFTIST Coast.

 

[brucekr]

I also use VPN, I asked because I just had a weird thing happen over the weekend. I retired to Oregon (wife is from OR) after 37 yrs in the Seattle area, subscriber and post comments to local articles on The Times.

I was making a couple of article comments over the weekend and they kept being flagged as "Spam subject to moderator review" even though they were clearly not so. After 3 such 'hits' I turned off VPN and it worked normally. That's why I was asking. I presume the VPN had defaulted to an off-shore country that triggered their software.

I honestly am not too sure of the scheme for our traffic on our work VPN. I do know that traffic from within our work domain (intranet) is handled differently vs the outside world (extranet). Exactly how, I'm not sure.

First thing I tried was checking on my phone. Same results unless I was using the cellular radio. But of course the cell connection in my room was terrible.

 

[uberguy]

So you said it worked to access NWFA over cellular using a smart phone?

If yes, then it seems it was probably the VPN (most incl. mine have a rotating masked IP address, that could be US or anywhere globally, at different times when accessing the web. Expect odd behaviors depending on the non-US country with VPNs...

 

[Certaindeaf]

$5 Fisty The Clown porn wasn't blocked.

 

[Koda]

Thats not a california thing, its a private company thing. I get that here in oregon, but i also stopped using private wifi.

 

[Nosferatu]

I use my work VPN more for encryption of network traffic than spoofing a location. At first I thought my company had blocked the website, because I could see them doing that, but once I got home, I now realize that's not the case.

They are using split-tunneling for outside web traffic then. What public WiFi connections were you on? That's where the filtering was happening.

You'd need to use a 3rd party VPN service to have all your traffic tunneled.

 

[brucekr]

They are using split-tunneling for outside web traffic then. What public WiFi connections were you on? That's where the filtering was happening.

You'd need to use a 3rd party VPN service to have all your traffic tunneled.

The only public wifi I used were the motel and airport.

 

[Nosferatu]

The only public wifi I used were the motel and airport.

The worst 2 you could possibly use! Basically assume every password you sent at that time has been compromised.

 

[User 1234]

The worst 2 you could possibly use! Basically assume every password you sent at that time has been compromised.

No wonder my Only Fans bill was so much higher than usual.