1st for me !!!

[StagLefty]

Took a neighbor to Kaiser Rock Creek today for a procedure and took my tablet figuring I could listen (had my bluetooth headset) to the radio while I was there. Decided to check into the insanity site known as COAR15 and get a message from their wifi that I was denied access to the site due to terms like bomb making,weapons !!!!
While a lot of you folks may have experienced this before since you probably get out more than I do,I was really surprised to get a message like that. Is this common out there now on free wifi access ? I realize it's free but I haven't run into at any other place I've signed into free access.

[izzy]

I got this message at a doctors office once for this site too. They were blocking all kinds of things actually.

[Grant H.]

This is pretty common.

It's a pretty simple process to ban this kind of stuff in firewalls/routers. The "objectionable content" list includes firearms in with porn and all other nsfw materials, as determined by who knows...

Having a personal VPN has it's benefits...

[Irving]

Did you blow up at the front desk lady?

[Gman]

I've had my Android tablet in multiple hospital facilities and haven't been blocked from this site. I guess it depends on the where and the when.

ETA: I don't have Kaiser.

[SideShow Bob]

Yep kaiser is anti gun.
Used my phone data to check up on the PWT last time I was there.

[spqrzilla]

Most of the time these blocklists are contracted out to third party companies, so it does not even matter if you complain to the local wifi host.

[mb504]

Try it at Wendy's... you won't be able to shop at most places that might sell guns, like Cabelas and Bass Pro.

[SideShow Bob]

Village Inn is anti for sure and if I am not mistaken, so is Lenny’s.

[thedave1164]

arfcom is blocked on a network I frequent, but not ar-15.co :)

[GilpinGuy]

I can't get to Cabelas or Bass Pro at work because Hal says "No Weapons and Firearms".

[Ah Pook]

Panera Bread has been doing this for years. Not a fan but when visiting the family, in TN, I needed WIFI. This was about 2006. PB was the closest place. Typed in ar-15.co or what ever it was then. Denied. Same with a lot of firearm sites. Had to use a proxy to access any of them.

[68Charger]

They may be doing this with DNS, but it's most easily defeated with a VPN.

There are free VPN apps out there that will work for this purpose... but I subscribe to one that supports all platforms and allows me to use like 5 devices at once.

My employer uses something like this, it does the same, gives a reason for the block... one time it was "Men's Health"... so apparently they want me to just die already, so I use VPN on my personal devices... that'll show 'em.

[Teufelhund]

Whoever admins the web filter for the company will just configure certain categories as blocked or allowed. The typical list includes porn, nudity, firearms, gore, malware, p2p, phishing, etc., and those are usually dictated by HR. There are companies such as Brightcloud that maintain which websites are in each category, and they add to them all the time. So a site you could get to yesterday may be blocked today. At my last company, we had to block firearms sites, but COAR15 always worked anyway because it wasn't categorized. My CIO at that place was also a firearms instructor, so we of course had to create an exception for him to be able to get to firearms sites.

[izzy]

Our company was bought out by a much larger one. When we moved to their office we had to have a big argument with them to actually allow porn on our network. The porn sites are our clients and there are people who have to look at them from time to time as part of their job. Now I'm wondering if I weren't part of that group if this site would be blocked too.

[CoGirl303]

Took a neighbor to Kaiser Rock Creek today for a procedure and took my tablet figuring I could listen (had my bluetooth headset) to the radio while I was there. Decided to check into the insanity site known as COAR15 and get a message from their wifi that I was denied access to the site due to terms like bomb making,weapons !!!!
While a lot of you folks may have experienced this before since you probably get out more than I do,I was really surprised to get a message like that. Is this common out there now on free wifi access ? I realize it's free but I haven't run into at any other place I've signed into free access.

use a VPN app, should allow you to bypass it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[StagLefty]

use a VPN app, should allow you to bypass it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm not a Kaiser member,just doing a favor for a friend had me there. I've never run into this before so adding an app isn't needed at this point.

[CoGirl303]

I'm not a Kaiser member,just doing a favor for a friend had me there. I've never run into this before so adding an app isn't needed at this point.

nice thing about a VPN app is you (and everyone else) should be using them whenever you do anything regarding personal/private info online with public and corporate networks because it protects it and you from hackers grabbing your data and info out of air.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[izzy]

ug ..... [facepalm]

[Justin]

Panera Bread has been doing this for years. Not a fan but when visiting the family, in TN, I needed WIFI. This was about 2006. PB was the closest place. Typed in ar-15.co or what ever it was then. Denied. Same with a lot of firearm sites. Had to use a proxy to access any of them.

This is what you get for having to go to Panera.

[Monky]

They may be doing this with DNS, but it's most easily defeated with a VPN.

There are free VPN apps out there that will work for this purpose... but I subscribe to one that supports all platforms and allows me to use like 5 devices at once.

My employer uses something like this, it does the same, gives a reason for the block... one time it was "Men's Health"... so apparently they want me to just die already, so I use VPN on my personal devices... that'll show 'em.

Which vpn are you running? I’ve been looking at setting one up on the router at home


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Grant H.]

I have Private Internet Access for a annonymizing VPN.

I like it. It's easy on Windows and Linux (no experience with Apple, I actually use my computers), and it maintains good speeds for any/all internet traffic.

It's also inexpensive at $40/yr. If you're worried about being "super secret" you can go pay cash for a gift card from various vendors, and use that to pay PIA.

They don't keep records, and they have end points all over the globe.

[68Charger]

Same here... PIA

I disqualified quite a few when I required linux support

[68Charger]

You can easily integrate PIA into a dd-wrt router to make an entire home under a VPN. (many off the shelf routers can be converted into dd-wrt making them more secure and in essence, more valuable)

The only real downside to it is latency is going to be higher, but that's only noticeable in the context of online gaming really.

Very true, and latency depends on location... but only adds about 5ms to Dallas in my case... I've been pretty impressed with them.

Just keep in mind that doing this will make everything on your network appear from the same IP as it exits the VPN... so your phone logging into Google or Apple will ID that IP as associated with you. Not necessarily only you (they use shared IPs, so other users have the same IP).

It's an extra layer, but VPNs don't make you completely invisible... unless it's Hollywood, and you're trying to get to "the mainframe"

[Little Dutch]

I’m always a little surprised when this forum loads at work. A large percentage of interesting stuff is blocked there.
It’s blocked on the guest wireless though, so I have to drop my internet connection on my phone to browse when I’m being professional enough to not use my work laptop for personal use.

[Justin]

For those who want to try a VPN without paying for it, the Opera browser has built-in VPN functionality.

[Bitter Clinger]

I use Hi vpn on my mobile devices. I dont even use my pc or laptop at home other than gaming or youtube.

[Wolfshoon]

This is a setting the admins of the forum board make. Employers that provide internet access will usually blacklist certain categories such as GAMES and Weapons and Bombs.

This could be easily fixed by ar-15.co owner, just change your category to something like news or science. When I ran/admin'd a gaming forum board a decade ago that is what I had to do to be able to get access to it at work.