If you live in any of those three countries, and you are currently able to access the forum - please get in touch with me via Private Message ASAP!
As you may or may not know, we've been under sustained attack from some kind of botnet which is working out of those three countries. Whilst I've managed to slow it down with some IP range rules in the firewall, the unfortunate side effect is potentially including users from other countries - e.g. Australia.
I'm also thinking we may well have some legit users in those countries, and I want to try to avoid affecting you, if that's you... If my plan works, we'll also be able to remove a huge number of IP range ban triggers we currently have in the forum ban system, which is about as blunt force as me adding iptables rules to the server to block IPs.... I'd rather get a bit more targetted, and only take out addresses which originate in the countries above (Singapore might also be added to the list - so if your'e a genuine user in Singapore, please let me know!
If I can get the integration right... I hope to be able to continue to allow access (even to banned IPs) to the login page, and the registration page(s): Thus, genuine users in those regions will be able to register, and genuine members will be able to log in. Once you're logged in, the IP ban will not affect you, so you should be able to use the whole site, even if you're in a geo restricted area. I intend to try this myself, as I'll be in China in late August... so if I can access it from there, yippee: If not, I'll see if I can fix it!
Anyway - if you ARE a member in one of the regions I mentioned above (+ Singapore), please contact me so I can make a list of your usernames. And, if you do unexpectedly lose access, please drop me an email (admins at modelenginemaker dot com) so we can try to get you back online if it happens.
Cheers,
Ade.
