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Hobbymaker.com blocked on Virgin

AdamCP
Joining in

Hi, HobbyMaker have updated their website domain from hobbymaker.co.uk to hobbymaker.com and for the last 2 days I seem to be getting blocked by my ISP, Virgin Media, from accessing the website which my wife uses and buys from regularly. Are any other Virgin uses seeing the same issue? Also, Virgin please upblock www.hobbymaker.com - it's not a phishing site, it's perfectly genuine and my wife has been buying from them 2 years or so.

Thanks

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Accepted Solutions

Client62
Alessandro Volta

hobbymaker.com is not blocked on VM.

The hobbymaker.com IP has not yet propagated to the Virgin Media DNS.

hobbymaker.com has the new IPs on Google Public DNS so use this for the moment and you will have access.

Via our VM connection using Google DNS :

Client62_0-1723725947702.png

 

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10 REPLIES 10

Client62
Alessandro Volta

hobbymaker.com is not blocked on VM.

The hobbymaker.com IP has not yet propagated to the Virgin Media DNS.

hobbymaker.com has the new IPs on Google Public DNS so use this for the moment and you will have access.

Via our VM connection using Google DNS :

Client62_0-1723725947702.png

 

Oh good to hear, thanks.

How long would something like this normally take to be readily available again vis normal site access?

Thanks again

coenoby
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@AdamCP @Client62 

VM are not blocking www.hobbymaker.com  but, for me at any rate,  Bitdefender is blocking it as a potential Phishing page.

If I over-ride Bitdefender's warning I can access the website via VM.

Coenoby

I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge, I don't work for Virgin Media.

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Client62
Alessandro Volta

Client62
Alessandro Volta

Looking a little deeper into this I suspect VM Smart Security has been silently enabled on the VM DNS of our account.  We have a Hub 3 in Router mode & use the default VM DNS via DHCP.

Earlier I said the IP propagation to the VM DNS had yet to occur, was I totally wrong ?

Here is the NSLOOKUP first with VM DNS ( browser fails to work ) then with Google DNS ( browser works ).

C:\Users\Philip>nslookup www.hobbymaker.com
Server: cache1.service.virginmedia.net
Address: 194.168.4.100

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.hobbymaker.com
Addresses: 2a02:8801:200:1::1
81.99.162.48             ( What actually is this IP ? Who own it ??? )

C:\Users\Philip>nslookup www.hobbymaker.com dns.google
Server: dns.google
Address: 8.8.4.4

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.hobbymaker.com
Addresses: 2606:4700:10::6816:3ca7
2606:4700:10::ac43:170e
2606:4700:10::6816:3da7
104.22.60.167
104.22.61.167
172.67.23.14

Seeing this I concluded that as the Google DNS worked, the VM DNS was slow to update.

Look what happens when we reverse the process with the IP 81.99.162.48 a new host name is returned by the VM DNS.   Try the same via Google DNS and the IP is unknown.

C:\Users\Philip>nslookup 81.99.162.48
Server: cache1.service.virginmedia.net
Address: 194.168.4.100

Name: lang-sspiprxy.network.virginmedia.net
Address: 81.99.162.48

There are no DNS records for IP 81.99.162.48 or for lang-sspiprxy.network.virginmedia.net
so Virgin Media are blocking www.hobbymaker.com by directing the browser to dummy IP / host.

Looking at lang-sspiprxy.network.virginmedia.net does the ss mean Smart Security ?

用心棒
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@Client62 wrote:



Looking at lang-sspiprxy.network.virginmedia.net does the ss mean Smart Security ?


AFAIK, no as naming pre-existed introduction of Smart Security

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legacy1
Alessandro Volta

VM trying trying to be smart is bad....

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Client62
Alessandro Volta

Interesting, with Child Safe and Virus Safe disabled I did not expect our DNS lookups to be redirected.

Smart Security is only controlled from the Connect app as far as I can tell & I'm not keen to install the Connect app as the first step is to make changes the the Hub Wi-Fi re-enabling Smart Wi-Fi which we do not want.

Client62
Alessandro Volta

Out of curiosity I used the Connect app and yes it did instantly re-enable Smart Wi-Fi, but also enabled Guest Wi-Fi and deleted the Reserved IP entry for our Epson printer. 

What a piece of intrusive garbage.  No signs of Smart Security settings.   
I did see the settings that can cause the previous Hub's credentials to be applied to a replacement Hub.

Connect app is now uninstalled and the Hub reverted to our choice of settings.

So even with VM Virus Safe off DNS inquiries can still redirected resulting in internet blocking.
Perhaps we should have our VOIP kit using a Public DNS !