Oh, frustrating. Like I said, IP blocking, at least on anything beyond a time limited basis is stupid. And the fact is that IP blocks are traded and likely to be traded faster and more furiously over the next few years until people realise that it's time to bite the bullet and go for IPv6. This all makes geoip blocking unreliable to the point of stupidity.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Definitely worth a shot. They should be able to assign you from a fresh subnet.

Well to say I am unhappy with my ISP is an understatement.

I sent a detailed email to Zen describing the problems I had encountered. I passed on the information from the fiero.nl website admin indicating that my IP address-range had been identified and blocked as originating from Bulgaria, and that the website owner was seeking to have the IP database corrected or updated. I noted that Zen managed various IP address ranges and asked them meanwhile to assign me a new, different "clean" one.

This is the response I have just received from their tech support team:
"....I'm sorry to hear about the IP issues, sadly we do not change our static IP's I'd suggest using a VPN to access the website if you didn't want to ask the owner but this is his issue."

I don't know what others think, but I find this totally unacceptable. Once again (and I have already seen this pattern from Zen) they are ducking the issue, declining to help, and passing the buck. I will be responding to that Zen message in fairly forthright terms. But I'd be interested in any comments.

Confused by Zen's response as you have communicated with the admins of the blocked forum who did remove the IP range block but it has been reinstated because of continued dodgy activity from other Zen IP's in the range you're in.

The least Zen could do now is change your IP address as you have gone as far as you can with the forum admin. May be you need to contact that guy who runs Zen, I can't remember his name but someone may have his email address.

In reply to a post by br1anstorm:

I don't know what others think, but I find this totally unacceptable. Once again (and I have already seen this pattern from Zen) they are ducking the issue, declining to help, and passing the buck. I will be responding to that Zen message in fairly forthright terms. But I'd be interested in any comments.

Escalation required.

Richard Tang, CEO
https://www.ceoemail.com/s.php?id=ceo-10544&c=Zen%20...

Sadly this is a typical Zen response. The support has declined rapidly over the last few years.

I'm on 88.97.16.xxx with Zen.
It's a fixed IP, and that used to be one of Zen's USPs, although I don't know if it applies to new subscribers.

In reply to a post by br1anstorm:

We know - thanks to @pheasant's earlier posts and the replies from others - that Zen manages or assigns IP addresses from numerous different ranges. Mine is 77.104.xxx.xxx. Those Zen clients on other IP addresses have had no problems. But this particular range (or some addresses within it) , managed by Zen, a UK ISP, is apparently identified as being based in Bulgaria!

Hum, a Dutch website, cannot legally ban connections from Bulgaria. That is a serious contravention of the single market as both countries are members of the EU. Bit tricky complaining about it now, thanks to Brexit, though.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

Hum, a Dutch website, cannot legally ban connections from Bulgaria. That is a serious contravention of the single market as both countries are members of the EU. Bit tricky complaining about it now, thanks to Brexit, though.

That's a somewhat pedantic point. There would perhaps be a case to answer if the connection was indeed from Bulgaria. The [Bulgarian] user might feel he could sue the Dutch website.

The point however is that that isn't the case here. So the comment about whether a ban would contravene EU rules is purely theoretical and academic

The Zen IP address range in question (77.104.xxx.xxx) is operating from and controlled by Zen in the UK. I don't know exactly how registrations or IP address 'owners' are recorded on global databases. But the explanation I have seen is that these records, whatever they are, are inaccurate or have not been kept up to date as the "ownership" of these ranges or blocks of IP addresses has been bought, sold or transferred.

So some servers think the IP address assigned to me by Zen is located in or managed from, Bulgaria. It isn't.

It seems a bit like buying a used car and then getting demands to pay parking fines incurred by the previous owners. The provider/seller of the car has an obligation to ensure what the Americans call "clean title" to the goods they offer.

Edited by br1anstorm (Mon 24-Feb-25 23:50:30)

I'm inclined to side with with Zen on this one though maybe the news could have been delivered with more customer-service friendly language. It's not reasonable to expect an ISP to do work because a server admin self-hosting a forum in the Netherlands has an inaccurate geo IP database. They are routing your packets to that host, the host is then dropping them. Every database I can query easily shows that IP space as being Zen's and based in the UK.

This isn't someone DDoSing the server from Zen IP space and Zen letting it happen, the permanent fix is for that server admin to not use an inaccurate geo IP database.

In reply to a post by jpm:

This isn't someone DDoSing the server from Zen IP space and Zen letting it happen, the permanent fix is for that server admin to not use an inaccurate geo IP database.

I agree. The server owner is not so much protecting his servers - he is actually disconnecting his users.