Grant - and anyone else traveling overseas,

Due to the high level of spammer attacks the site has had through the years, we've banned hundreds (or thousands) of individual IP addresses and hundreds of subnets. Each banned subnet covers over 650k individual IP's. This is fine for our members when we're sitting someone CONUS but can cause access issues when they travel overseas. Spammers out of China like to go through other Asian countries like Vietnam, Korea - and Taiwan.

To alleviate this, what we've done for folks in the past is ask them to send an email to the "Contact Us" address (boardadmin@ar-15.co) and let us know your member name (to help us verify it's actually you, please give us something we can use to truly know it is you!), what's going on and how long you expect to be using that IP. Using the "Contact Us" link embeds your IP address into the content of your message to us. We check that email daily (sometimes more). We'll then temporarily unblock that IP (for the duration of your trip/while you expect to use that IP), then re-block it when you've told us you're no longer using it. If you move, and need access through another IP, just follow the process again. All of this helps to reduce risk to the site and helps you, the member, to have access.

PLEASE NOTE: We're having an issue with our "Contact Us" mailbox whereas only I can currently access the mailbox. I'll be incommunicado for a while starting Monday evening and likely won't have time to access the site at all tomorrow. If you want to use this option, act fast.

SECOND NOTE: We also block LOTS of VPN's as they mask the location of members and are also a common tool of spammers. We verify all new members locations and VPN's don't facilitate this option. Once members are established (i.e. activated), they can use a VPN to access the site, so long as the routing doesn't take them through a banned IP, or overseas where there is a greater likelihood of encountering a blocked IP. The only site members that should ever receive a "The administrator has banned your IP address" message is those overseas, those using VPN's, and those who've done something very wrong and got themselves banned (even then, those folks KNOW they were banned and we rarely ban the member AND block their IP --it's usually just a member ban). We occasionally receive emails saying "My IP is blocked, why did you ban me" from members in good standing. We have to explain to them that they've stumbled onto a blocked IP connection and to release and renew their connection and that usually clears the problem.

Good luck.