With the almost complete allocation of previously available IP4 addresses, ICANN released IP address block from previously reserved ranges to private ISPs. Unfortunately for these ISPs and their customers (one in particular), in the past these IP blocks were heavily used by malicious individuals who spoofed their IP addresses. This resulted in many servers that simply refuse connections to the entire block. What block is this? It’s the 173.x.x.x block.
For a year now, Mediacom has assigned IPs under the 173.18.x.x block. Thanks to that, one’s IP address is in this range. There are sites one literally can not visit due to having a legitimate IP address in the 173.x.x.x range, instead one gets a nice “network timeout error”. In the past it was the Weblogs.us forums (now down for everyone as phpBB committed suicide), now it’s other sites. Sure one can use a webproxy, and have, but that is more trouble than it’s worth. It would be nice if these servers would at least keep current with their IP block blacklists. Even better, new blacklists not containing known to be good IP blocks because of their prior illegitimate use would be a welcomed change.
-John Havlik
[end of transmission, stay tuned]