Actully I'm seeing the IP ban anytime I use my NordVPN account. I'm not that worried as I just turn it off for this website.
Yeah, they use lots of IPs in Europe so no surprise that we would cross their paths. The Russians are also using (or possibly spoofing) a number of IPs in Germany and France, so I have to cut more carefully there. I've also blotted out several known cloaking servers and VPNs in Europe as we've had applicants who refuse to divulge who/where they are (which, in and of itself is actually a very low bar; so their calling attention to it is not really very helpful)....
If someone wants to retain their privacy, it's easier to just create a persona, retain your anonymity, stick to that and then leave it alone. In the end however, people typically slip and the truth usually comes out by their own hand (text in post: "....the Foss waterway is very slow and they just replaced the docks..." easily equates to Tacoma, WA and Balfour Building === AKA: 705 Dock St, Tacoma, WA 98402). Add to that the guy mentions dentistry, and having to get "over I-5" and you are off to looking at dentists with practices south of I-5 in Tacoma, who may belong to a yacht club. It's actually very easy to run people down and figure out who they are. I recall one guy on Facebook who lived in VA (extent of public info) who was beating up people over politics, including a friend of mine. Fifteen minutes of looking into him yielded he was a horse vet who was semi-retired and moved to VA three years ago from Santa Barbara; also where he went to vet school (Ohio State). I had stopped there (his path was pretty easy to see). So, I posed one simple question to him mentioning horse tranquillizers, the Santa Barbara Ventura Veterinary Medical Association members and faculty at OSU he likely would have known - and *POOF* he dropped his account and disappeared.
I don't know - to me it's really simple: EY.o is a tiny, non-monetary club/community/data repository - so the cloak-and-dagger is not needed anymore than would be showing up at a yacht club door wearing a full body suit and hood and expecting to be welcomed. If the latter is not acceptable then I don't know why the former would be. Call me 'Old School' - I just don't see the point. I mean, I understand using a proxy - and that's fine as far as it goes. However if one is going to live their lives and interact with others, the usefulness of it is really limited only to the packets being exchanged and the path they're taking (network security). Ultimately, human nature will intercede and render much of it pointless.
People often forget that the internet is
only a virtual extension of the world we live in - and just like the real world, people want some reasonable assurance of who they're dealing with, reasonable behavior, to be treated with respect, etc.
=)
Anyhow....I digress....
