Not sure whats causing the specific issue for the OP, but...

We're hit with new spam accounts every day. In an effort to keep the site secure and keep the spammers off of the site, we block IP's regularly (daily!). I won't go into the details, but we do make an effort to prevent, or at least limit the impact these blocks have on our existing and potential future legitimate members. I'll add, if you're using a VPN to access the site, you need to use IP's from within the CONUS as foreign IP's are blocked more readily and much more broadly than CONUS IP's.

For any potential new members signing up: Before signing up, turn off your VPN as we'll be checking where you claim to be coming from against where your IP says you're coming from. If these don't match, your account will be rejected/deleted.



Quote Originally Posted by thedave1164 View Post
you do know VPN's are not secure, right?

just sayin
BINGO! The way VPN's are sold off to folks is that they're somehow some magical security tool for traversing the web. Reality is that they're just a re-direction tool, masking where you're physically located. Law enforcement and intelligence entities have tools that can trace most traffic, even if using multiple VPN's, back to the original point of origin. VPN's are like magicians/illusionists who use misdirection - if you know how the trick is performed, you can see right through it.

I'm also always in awe of how many people (most everyone these days) are happy to give access to their data to 3rd parties by using "the cloud". People think "the cloud" is some magical fairyland place that their data is stored when reality is "the cloud" is simply someone else's server. When you allow your data to reside in "the cloud", you can access it from most anywhere you have internet access, but whoever's server it's sitting on can also access it and, technically, it's their data which they're free to do with as they please (all cloud providers sell heuristic information pulled from your "cloud" data for marketing, etc.).