8 ms·

The UK government has blocked IPs

66 points by hi 2y ago

userbinator 2y ago
I get the same Cloudflare block page that I come across very frequently in search results (and always results in a swift click of the Back button.)
protosam 2y ago
I blindly clicked this expecting an article about the matter. Was kinda surprised to be given a live demonstration. I can reach nhs.uk fine. Edit: searching Google, there are recent reports that make me feel like this is their response to being too incompetent to process cyber crime reports. I’m genuinely curious if someone unilaterally decided that people not physically in the uk don’t matter.
- inopinatus 2y ago
  Doesn't work from Australia either, so apparently the Commonwealth can get fucked. I imagine some middle-ranking civil servants at the FCO will, in a not-too-distant-future, be expressing a measure of dismay to their Home Office counterparts. Before which time, hopefully, the gov.uk folks will figure out how to selectively block access to live reporting channels, not the entire police service, in response to vexatious abuse. Prank emergency calls from children have been a hassle since time immemorial, and I see these circumstances as entirely corresponding, merely at scale; I'd even express surprise if this is a first for online British police channels.
  - protosam 2y ago
    > immemorial This word just got added to my vocabulary for future use. Thanks stranger.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    >> You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. This is almost certainly an IT admin not bothering to read Cloudflare's documentation and leaving something on the wrong setting. Number of customers who read documentation << number of customers, although it seems especially endemic in infosec.
  - OJFord 2y ago
    I'm not saying it makes complete sense, but I'm not sure I understand why it bothers you that much? I'm not sure how many times I've visited police.uk in my (British) life, probably a few, but I'm pretty sure it's zero for police.au or whatever it is.
    - inopinatus 2y ago
      I've had reason to correspond with British police forces on several occasions. There are many transnational matters of diplomacy, law enforcement, citizenship, sport, tourism, hiring, migration, security, and trade for which police clearance and input may be (sometimes must be) sought, or notification given, and this disrupts all of them: websites are a starting point for interaction, documentation, and communication, and it's a massive burden if you're forced back to calling up folks at your UK offices (or worse, the high commission) just to start a conversation each time, let alone work through a process.
  - gerdesj 2y ago
    There's a good chance that instead of "fuck you Aussies", what we have is a firewall that has been battered to the point of banning most of the world. The UK is under some form of attack at the moment (probably mostly internally generated - no need to invoke bogeymen). We have seen quite a lot of anti racist activity recently and it is likely the nasty lot have been contained (hopefully). The Commonwealth is always welcome here - that's why our mutual Queen (EIIR) created it. She got to grips with us proles rather well from around 1995 onwards when the Royal Family realised they have to engage with us lot. Personally speaking, I've always thought of AU and NZ (SA etc) as mates. We might disagree about a few things and rugby and cricket and that. However we have more in common than not. I have no doubt that the mood in AU and NZ is largely stirred with anti British sentiment (we see it here from Scotland, even though "modern Britain" was invented by a Scottish king - James 1 or VI). NZ have often moved towards a silver fern on black flag. I say: why not - if that is your idea of your identity then crack on (it does look rather cool). Also, perhaps AU should rethink their flag - you go all in on gold and green. Ditch the blue thingie with the southern cross and the union flag in the top left - it doesn't suit you. ... or keep it because you can and proudly do whatever floats your boat. AU needs to sit down and take a really hard look at its flag and do what is best for AU. The world is a messy place but let's keep it civil (and real).
    - protosam 2y ago
      I think the EU is affected as well by this. If there was any foreign region that needs access to the police services of the UK, I would bet the neighboring EU countries would be at the top of the list.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
abstractbeliefs 2y ago
It's a surprise, I'm a UK citizen living in a UK dependency and will shortly be returning to Great Britain, and I can't access it. Huh!
- etothepii 2y ago
  Same in the OT of BMU.
kypro 2y ago
For those unaware, the UK police are currently promising to go after people posting misinformation and retweeting content (including video of riots) that might incite hate. In response to this the UK police are being trolled on their live chats (largely by Americans I believe). I did originally post a link to these (you can find them on X), but given the content I don't want to risk it. I'm assuming they're now blocking IPs because of the abuse. This started yesterday when the police said they have officers looking through social media for offences, https://x.com/ElijahKyama_/status/1821180825007763660/video/1 https://x.com/ElijahKyama_/status/1821180825007763660/video/... But heated up again today after a 55 year old women was arrested for posting inaccurate information to social media, https://www.cheshire.police.uk/news/cheshire/news/articles/2024/8/woman-arrested-in-connection-with-inaccurate-social-media-post/ https://www.cheshire.police.uk/news/cheshire/news/articles/2... I'm currently waiting for a knock at my door along with 65 million of Brits who have posted inaccurate information online from time to time. Legal note: if anything I have said here is inaccurate I was unaware of it at the time of posting.
- anakaine 2y ago
  What's amusing is you posted a link to the 5t year old woman being arrested, and that's also an endpoint which is blocking foreign access.
- Hedder 2y ago
  [flagged]
- adolph 2y ago
  [flagged]
- benmmurphy 2y ago
  the wild thing is in the UK private citizens can bring about criminal prosecutions. section 179 is a hornets nest waiting to be poked. in the UK prosecutors are not a bulwark against bad law. the courts would need to thread the needle to protect freedom of speech for elites but allow suppression for plebs. > at the time of sending it, the person intended the message, or the information in it, to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience, and even announcing future legitimate policy direction by the government could be construed as causing non-trivial psychological harm.
adolph 2y ago
I get a HTTP/2 403 from a US IP address. The html payload has Cloudflare Ray all over it.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  So…does that mean Cloudflare is aiding a government in functioning in an authoritarian way?
  - ezfe 2y ago
    The government is just using a regular feature to block by country. Nothing special.
    - adolph 2y ago
      Just like Bangladesh, right?
  - sammy2255 2y ago
    Lots of governments use Cloudflare
dhx 2y ago
How many frustrated everyday UK citizens are going to get scammed into using malicious VPN/proxy services or malicious software to access UK government services from abroad?
malux85 2y ago
Yeah I'm blocked too, New Zealand here
gerdesj 2y ago
$ host www.police.uk www.police.uk is an alias for fallback.soh.police.uk. fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.28.214 fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.29.214 $ host police.uk police.uk has address 51.104.28.64 Could someone outside the UK use the above and explain what they experience. Then we can get to the bottom of this. Its a bit late here for me to ask remote customers if I can use their gear to diagnose this. Let's keep it real please! (EDIT - formatting)
- latexr 2y ago
  I’m outside the UK, can’t access the website, and those two commands return the same result you posted.
- deanrtaylor 2y ago
  └─[0] < > ~ host www.police.uk 8:41 www.police.uk is an alias for fallback.soh.police.uk. fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.29.214 fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.28.214 └─[0] < > ~ host police.uk 8:41 police.uk has address 51.104.28.64 I'm in southeast asia and the website is blocked
- xp84 2y ago
  From USA: :~$ host police.uk police.uk has address 51.104.28.64 :~$ host www.police.uk www.police.uk is an alias for fallback.soh.police.uk. fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.28.214 fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.29.214 Site blocked for me here.
- squiffsquiff 2y ago
  Within the UK: $ host www.police.uk www.police.uk is an alias for fallback.soh.police.uk. fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.29.214 fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.28.214 https://www.police.uk/ https://www.police.uk/ is a police force landing page
nemo44x 2y ago
"Anarcho-tyranny is a social condition characterized by a combination of anarchy and tyranny, where the government is simultaneously ineffective at enforcing laws against criminal behavior and overly oppressive against law-abiding citizens."
- yossarian1408 2y ago
  Reminiscent of that quote from the Gulag Archipelago. "Your punishment for having a knife when they searched you would be very different from the thief’s. For him to have a knife was mere misbehavior, tradition, he didn’t know any better. But for you to have one was ‘terrorism."
darajava 2y ago
I feel this is a response to a 4chan attack: https://x.com/surfmaxing/status/1821162520406630535 https://x.com/surfmaxing/status/1821162520406630535
- lmaoguy 2y ago
  Glorious
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  needful status: do it please

66 points by hi 2y ago

I get the same Cloudflare block page that I come across very frequently in search results (and always results in a swift click of the Back button.)

protosam 2y ago

I blindly clicked this expecting an article about the matter. Was kinda surprised to be given a live demonstration. I can reach nhs.uk fine. Edit: searching Google, there are recent reports that make me feel like this is their response to being too incompetent to process cyber crime reports. I’m genuinely curious if someone unilaterally decided that people not physically in the uk don’t matter.

inopinatus 2y ago
Doesn't work from Australia either, so apparently the Commonwealth can get fucked. I imagine some middle-ranking civil servants at the FCO will, in a not-too-distant-future, be expressing a measure of dismay to their Home Office counterparts. Before which time, hopefully, the gov.uk folks will figure out how to selectively block access to live reporting channels, not the entire police service, in response to vexatious abuse. Prank emergency calls from children have been a hassle since time immemorial, and I see these circumstances as entirely corresponding, merely at scale; I'd even express surprise if this is a first for online British police channels.
- protosam 2y ago
  > immemorial This word just got added to my vocabulary for future use. Thanks stranger.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  >> You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. This is almost certainly an IT admin not bothering to read Cloudflare's documentation and leaving something on the wrong setting. Number of customers who read documentation << number of customers, although it seems especially endemic in infosec.
- OJFord 2y ago
  I'm not saying it makes complete sense, but I'm not sure I understand why it bothers you that much? I'm not sure how many times I've visited police.uk in my (British) life, probably a few, but I'm pretty sure it's zero for police.au or whatever it is.
  - inopinatus 2y ago
    I've had reason to correspond with British police forces on several occasions. There are many transnational matters of diplomacy, law enforcement, citizenship, sport, tourism, hiring, migration, security, and trade for which police clearance and input may be (sometimes must be) sought, or notification given, and this disrupts all of them: websites are a starting point for interaction, documentation, and communication, and it's a massive burden if you're forced back to calling up folks at your UK offices (or worse, the high commission) just to start a conversation each time, let alone work through a process.
- gerdesj 2y ago
  There's a good chance that instead of "fuck you Aussies", what we have is a firewall that has been battered to the point of banning most of the world. The UK is under some form of attack at the moment (probably mostly internally generated - no need to invoke bogeymen). We have seen quite a lot of anti racist activity recently and it is likely the nasty lot have been contained (hopefully). The Commonwealth is always welcome here - that's why our mutual Queen (EIIR) created it. She got to grips with us proles rather well from around 1995 onwards when the Royal Family realised they have to engage with us lot. Personally speaking, I've always thought of AU and NZ (SA etc) as mates. We might disagree about a few things and rugby and cricket and that. However we have more in common than not. I have no doubt that the mood in AU and NZ is largely stirred with anti British sentiment (we see it here from Scotland, even though "modern Britain" was invented by a Scottish king - James 1 or VI). NZ have often moved towards a silver fern on black flag. I say: why not - if that is your idea of your identity then crack on (it does look rather cool). Also, perhaps AU should rethink their flag - you go all in on gold and green. Ditch the blue thingie with the southern cross and the union flag in the top left - it doesn't suit you. ... or keep it because you can and proudly do whatever floats your boat. AU needs to sit down and take a really hard look at its flag and do what is best for AU. The world is a messy place but let's keep it civil (and real).
  - protosam 2y ago
    I think the EU is affected as well by this. If there was any foreign region that needs access to the police services of the UK, I would bet the neighboring EU countries would be at the top of the list.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

abstractbeliefs 2y ago

It's a surprise, I'm a UK citizen living in a UK dependency and will shortly be returning to Great Britain, and I can't access it. Huh!

etothepii 2y ago
Same in the OT of BMU.

kypro 2y ago

For those unaware, the UK police are currently promising to go after people posting misinformation and retweeting content (including video of riots) that might incite hate. In response to this the UK police are being trolled on their live chats (largely by Americans I believe). I did originally post a link to these (you can find them on X), but given the content I don't want to risk it. I'm assuming they're now blocking IPs because of the abuse. This started yesterday when the police said they have officers looking through social media for offences, https://x.com/ElijahKyama_/status/1821180825007763660/video/1 https://x.com/ElijahKyama_/status/1821180825007763660/video/... But heated up again today after a 55 year old women was arrested for posting inaccurate information to social media, https://www.cheshire.police.uk/news/cheshire/news/articles/2024/8/woman-arrested-in-connection-with-inaccurate-social-media-post/ https://www.cheshire.police.uk/news/cheshire/news/articles/2... I'm currently waiting for a knock at my door along with 65 million of Brits who have posted inaccurate information online from time to time. Legal note: if anything I have said here is inaccurate I was unaware of it at the time of posting.

anakaine 2y ago
What's amusing is you posted a link to the 5t year old woman being arrested, and that's also an endpoint which is blocking foreign access.
Hedder 2y ago
[flagged]
adolph 2y ago
[flagged]
benmmurphy 2y ago
the wild thing is in the UK private citizens can bring about criminal prosecutions. section 179 is a hornets nest waiting to be poked. in the UK prosecutors are not a bulwark against bad law. the courts would need to thread the needle to protect freedom of speech for elites but allow suppression for plebs. > at the time of sending it, the person intended the message, or the information in it, to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience, and even announcing future legitimate policy direction by the government could be construed as causing non-trivial psychological harm.

adolph 2y ago

I get a HTTP/2 403 from a US IP address. The html payload has Cloudflare Ray all over it.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
So…does that mean Cloudflare is aiding a government in functioning in an authoritarian way?
- ezfe 2y ago
  The government is just using a regular feature to block by country. Nothing special.
  - adolph 2y ago
    Just like Bangladesh, right?
- sammy2255 2y ago
  Lots of governments use Cloudflare

dhx 2y ago

How many frustrated everyday UK citizens are going to get scammed into using malicious VPN/proxy services or malicious software to access UK government services from abroad?

malux85 2y ago

Yeah I'm blocked too, New Zealand here

gerdesj 2y ago

$ host www.police.uk www.police.uk is an alias for fallback.soh.police.uk. fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.28.214 fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.29.214 $ host police.uk police.uk has address 51.104.28.64 Could someone outside the UK use the above and explain what they experience. Then we can get to the bottom of this. Its a bit late here for me to ask remote customers if I can use their gear to diagnose this. Let's keep it real please! (EDIT - formatting)

latexr 2y ago
I’m outside the UK, can’t access the website, and those two commands return the same result you posted.
deanrtaylor 2y ago
└─[0] < > ~ host www.police.uk 8:41 www.police.uk is an alias for fallback.soh.police.uk. fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.29.214 fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.28.214 └─[0] < > ~ host police.uk 8:41 police.uk has address 51.104.28.64 I'm in southeast asia and the website is blocked
xp84 2y ago
From USA: :~$ host police.uk police.uk has address 51.104.28.64 :~$ host www.police.uk www.police.uk is an alias for fallback.soh.police.uk. fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.28.214 fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.29.214 Site blocked for me here.
squiffsquiff 2y ago
Within the UK: $ host www.police.uk www.police.uk is an alias for fallback.soh.police.uk. fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.29.214 fallback.soh.police.uk has address 104.18.28.214 https://www.police.uk/ https://www.police.uk/ is a police force landing page

nemo44x 2y ago

"Anarcho-tyranny is a social condition characterized by a combination of anarchy and tyranny, where the government is simultaneously ineffective at enforcing laws against criminal behavior and overly oppressive against law-abiding citizens."

yossarian1408 2y ago
Reminiscent of that quote from the Gulag Archipelago. "Your punishment for having a knife when they searched you would be very different from the thief’s. For him to have a knife was mere misbehavior, tradition, he didn’t know any better. But for you to have one was ‘terrorism."

darajava 2y ago

I feel this is a response to a 4chan attack: https://x.com/surfmaxing/status/1821162520406630535 https://x.com/surfmaxing/status/1821162520406630535

lmaoguy 2y ago
Glorious
red-iron-pine 2y ago
needful status: do it please