DU is being Filtered By My ISP

[RobertEarl]

Other sites, like NYT, Fox news and Daily Mail all load up as usual.

But click on DU and simple pages never finish loading.

Folks, this is the beginning of the end for the free internet. My ISP denies they are blocking some internet traffic but I have proof they are placing filters on the web. They even have an option on their account pages where a customer can filter the web by their customer's choice.


Of course, if you are an establishment supporter and never rock the boat, you are no target. They just looooove sheeple. Only the hell raisers and hard questioners of the PTB get attention.

Each time this has happened to me (3 times now) it has only been after some serious anti-establishment questions have been posted.

For all you who want to keep posting the drivel that amounts to nothing more than chit-chat, you are safe.

Looking over DU these last few days shows that, and that many hard nosed questioners are almost extinct. Please, alert on this and send it to admins, they need to know that DU is being buried by the PTB.

And for those of you who are considering to make a reply about how it isn't effecting you, just f'n put me on ignore and be done with yourselves.

I've been on the web for 14 years now and it has never been this bad. They are sticking it to us. The only sites that load are the Big sites and that is just how they want it to be from here on.

[hobbit709]

1. Who's your ISP?

[snooper2]

2. I'm in telecom, you one of my customers?

I mostly deal with VoIP but I can "fix" some other things for you

[DisgustipatedinCA]

12. You got your DSCP EF packets in my AF41. Would you fix that, please?

.

[Rex]

3. I have a hard time getting on DU at times.

You think it's agent Mike?

[RudynJack]

4. Sometimes DU is just slow.

[FSogol]

8. Sometimes people on DU are slow.

[Number23]

74. This is the best thread. EVER.

Only the "real, hard line" questioners have slow Internet connections.

[FSogol]

78. H.R. 2549 "Helping Obama Cheerleaders and 1% Americans Now Act"

Rules Committee Print 213-8, showing the text of H.R. 2549 as ordered reported by the Super Secret Committee on Stifling Real, Hardline Questioners on various web forums. Added 04/22/2013 at 10:11 AM



Note to self: Invest in Alcoa Stock.

[Pelican]

80. You have to be a hell raiser as well...

Quite an elite club...

[xmas74]

84. I've nothing to add.

I just wanted to make my presence known in what has the makings of an epic thread.

[RKP5637]

114. This is also going on in our area. See post #77. n/t

[Lady Freedom Returns]

96. Maybe the slow internet is...

questioning the "real, hard line" questioners?

[Electric Monk]

98. "real, hard line" questioners, like in post #14

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022777292#post14

[Lady Freedom Returns]

103. Since CreekDog cheats in a discussion battle, I will not say anything to....

Bring his wrath.


How does CreekDog do that LFR?

By looking up facts.

[CreekDog]

116. I was just trying to figure out what LFR stands for.

[FSogol]

5. Cue X-Files theme: OoooOoooOoooooOooo

[NightWatcher]

6. Paranoid much?

They're not coming to get you because of what you ask on DU. I correspond with lots of radicals and political noisemakers and haven't had issue.

Why post your OP if you want others who don't share your position to ignore you? This is a Discussion Board.

Discuss.

[Nite Owl]

7. Where are you and what

provider are you using? Have you tried a different browser?

[Nye Bevan]

9. There seems to be a bug in this thread. All of the OP's text is obscured by black rectangles.

Weird.

[octothorpe]

53. You're getting that too?

WTF?

[truedelphi]

60. What I hate are the usual crowd of black

helicopters that accompany this effort to filter out DU.

[Kali]

75. !!!

[NealK]

125. Lol!

[NCTraveler]

10. I think we would be done with you if we put you on ignore. Not ourselves.

But I would never do that.

"And for those of you who are considering to make a reply about how it isn't effecting you, just f'n put me on ignore and be done with yourselves."

[HERVEPA]

11. Hmmm. Way to offend as many people as possible.

[leveymg]

13. Here's the way to find out if it's your ISP or something else.

Step 1) On a day you can't load DU at home, take your computer (assuming it's a laptop) to another location - library, friend's house, Starbucks, whatever -- and see if you have trouble getting on.

If DU loads, you may have a problem with your ISP or connection.

Step 2) Try getting onto DU at home using someone else's computer from your home location. Borrow a test computer. If you still can't get onto DU, but other sites load okay, then you might want to call your ISP or cable provider and ask about this.

Good luck!

[FSogol]

16. The connection? No way, it must be an evil conspiracy, not a simple computer problem.

[leveymg]

18. I assumed the problem was technical. My bad. Head slap.

[FSogol]

24. We ALL know that the simplest explanation can't be right.

[Tree-Hugger]

40. It's chem trails. Or HAARP. Or something. eom

[RKP5637]

115. This is also going on in our area. See post #77. n/t

[leveymg]

123. How would such hijacking by an ISP be detected? See #64.

What you describe at #77 seems to be a separate issue from counting the number of hops analysis explained by Jeff at #64.

For those two responses, this has indeed been a highly valuable thread.

Thnx.

[RKP5637]

124. Here, the ISP banner appears, advertising for many things, and also

a notification that you requested an invalid URL. Then, if you search on the links presented by the ISP you can then find DU. It well might be they do this for frequently visited sites??? and has nothing to do with DU specifically. This is a practice becoming prevalent for ISP revenue - ads/clicks. I first learned of it after doing a lot of searching on the net. Here, I run several secure systems and when I saw this is was a WTF search.

[leveymg]

127. I haven't seen that before.

The closest I've seen is an APACHE advisory that comes up when a link to what appears might have been a mirror site is severed. Interesting. Thanks.

[RKP5637]

132. It was really a WTF moment for me having been in IT for years. Someplace, I read that not long ago

some sw had been developed that allows, as they said, unscrupulous ISPs to easily redirect DNS traffic to advertising for click-revenue, as well as giving an invalid URL for sites they wish. Here, I think, giving the ISP credit, it might have been just for advertising revenue ... although, this is a red/red area so it's easy to get a little paranoid. They could easily direct unsuspecting customers for revenue ... thinking this was just now it worked. Yeah, it's been a really interesting thread. Since I switched DNS servers via my routers I had not thought much about it 'till I saw this OP ...

[leveymg]

135. Apparently, there are many here who saw nothing more or less in the OP than

and an opportunity for a dog pile -- we really should have that as a smilies icon -- and a good laugh at the OP's expense.

I don't know what to think about the OP's problem (technical difficulty or something else, both maybe), but there really is a nasty pack instinct at work that's plainly evident in this thread. I'm a bit embarrassed for DU by this one.

Meanwhile, I learned some things about how the inner tubes work. Thanks again!

[RKP5637]

136. Yep, a real problem when people just jump on bandwagons ... and used so well as we know by political

operatives ... swift-boating comes to mind!

[RobertEarl]

29. No kidding?

You think I have not jumped all those hoops already?

I can download all the big sites with no problem, but when it comes to DU and a few others, it gets locked up.

My ISP is ignoring me because they don't want to admit they are filtering. THEY OFFER FILTERING OPTIONS RIGHT ON THEIR HOMEPAGE. They have the tech, but then when I point out that a 300 kb page loads in 2 secs, but my email, DU and other sites never finish loading, they act like there is nothing they can do.

But twice now, when the problem went away, their polite letters to me said that they finally, FINALLY, checked the network.

The poor slaves at the bottom of the pile at the ISP are not to blame.

Question: Do you not believe that an ISP can filter the internet?

Sorry, that was a dumb question, because of course you know they can.

[Gravitycollapse]

32. An ISP can filter whatever they want. The question is why would they filter Democratic Underground?

As opposed to literally millions of other left leaning sites.

[leveymg]

35. Did you try these simple steps?

If so, what happened when you tried to log-on to DU from somewhere other than your home location served by your ISP?

[cui bono]

44. So who is your ISP? You never answered. n/t

[Gravitycollapse]

47. He can't answer. His ISP keeps blocking the post.

[Captain Stern]

59. You say your IP offers filtering options

Is one of those options to make some pages load slow?

Or, are they parental control options that let you ban certain sites altogether?

Seems to me that if the folks at your IP thought it was really important to keep you from posting here, they'd make it impossible...not just inconvenient.

[REP]

68. Don't offer confusing facts

He doesn't understand the difference between user filtering, throttling and being a dumbfuck.

[zappaman]

69. Best response yet in a thread full of fun!

[jeff47]

64. There's a much easier way

open a command prompt, and use traceroute on unix, or tracert on windows. For example:

tracert www.democraticunderground.com

This will list all the steps between you and Democratic Underground.

Mine looks like this (I've redacted the names that reveal where I live)

Tracing route to www.democraticunderground.com (216.158.28.195)
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 33 ms 12 ms 35 ms 10.101.0.1
3 53 ms 63 ms 63 ms (redacted)
4 11 ms 10 ms 13 ms (redacted)
5 34 ms 39 ms 31 ms (redacted)
6 72 ms 62 ms * ae-3-0.cr0.chi10.tbone.rr.com (66.109.6.72)
7 29 ms 26 ms 27 ms 66.109.6.189
8 69 ms 81 ms 77 ms ge9-4.br03.chc01.pccwbtn.net (209.8.108.37)
9 74 ms 93 ms 75 ms dcanet.ge2-4.br01.phl02.pccwbtn.net (63.218.31.10)
10 83 ms 89 ms 91 ms core-4-gig-vlan-500.hq.dca.net (216.158.2.2)
11 211 ms 65 ms 64 ms core-2.hq.dca.net (216.158.48.2)
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.

Eventually, it will stop listing new steps - DU's ISP filters out traceroute traffic, which is extremely common - it reduces DU's bandwidth and thus cost. The "* * *" lines at the end are where that happens. Hit Control-C to stop the program.

If there's only about 4 hops, then your ISP may be blocking DU's IP - though it may be something as innocent as equipment failure. If there's 10-ish, then your ISP isn't blocking DU.

There's other ways your ISP could filter, but those are more obvious and easier to get around.

[leveymg]

72. Easy for you to say. But, hey, that is a useful parlour trick.

Thanks for the tutorial!

[CreekDog]

14. Dang, are you having trouble posting racist nonsense?

RobertEarl (2,748 posts)
52. My opinion

Since our society is making progress and slowly dropping the wall of privilege, or glass ceiling, the society as a whole will improve. Be better.

But it is what it is and we can thank the wm, as a whole, for producing the easy life we now enjoy. The US and Europe have it very, very good historically, and imo, it has to do with the affirmative action the wm embraced and made good with.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2139421

RobertEarl (2,748 posts)
23. Yeah, and it is time to do this

Last edited Sat Jan 5, 2013, 07:05 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
Everyone needs to come to grips with the fact that the privileged white male has been very, very good for this society. That thru that privilege our human society have great things upon which our easy lives' rest. Our unions and our work ethic have resulted in all of us living like only the few kings and queens did 100 years ago.

I am a wm and I'm proud and privileged.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2139120

If birds congregate, problems can arise...

RobertEarl (2,748 posts)
4. Klamath river?

There's water in them there rivers.

Birds can fly and find water. Sure, if they congregate problems can arise. But birds are smart enough to flap their wings and find the habitat they need. Of course they can't tell if the radiation is there or anywhere. Neither can humans. But we have Geiger counters.

And the counters have found radiation all up and down the coast. And radiation levels are always highest where water has settled. Like it does in marshes. Don't close your mind off to the possibilities is all I am saying.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=593805

[LanternWaste]

45. Those are brilliant! It's like reading Daffy Duck's manifesto.

Those are brilliant! It's like reading Daffy Duck's political manifesto.

Ok... this poster may be my New Favorite Person in the World to Read After One Too Many Drinks.

[liberalhistorian]

88. Holy SHIT, what a

bunch of racist, reactionary nonsense. I think he's got the wrong calendar, and his is on 1913, not 2013.

[Hekate]

97. I want more butter with my popcorn

Good stuff, good stuff.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. You're such a hell raiser and hard questioner, you coyly just say "my ISP"

Go on, rebel - actually complain about them in the open.

[pintobean]

17. Be free to post the drivel...

Got it.

[Dreamer Tatum]

19. Lobbying for your pic in the dictionary under 'paranoia,' huh? nt

[CreekDog]

20. maybe you forgot to turn off the webapp that stops nonsense posts like this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=593805

[liberalhistorian]

90. WTF is he babbling about?

WTF is that drivel supposed to mean? I've read it three times now and I still just can't figure it out. Methinks the aluminum in his tin foil hat must be seeping into his brain.

[johnp3907]

21. Who is "PTB?"

P.T. Barnum?

(Sorry----"They" "made" me post that.)

[Hekate]

99. I had to go look it up, but the ISP blocked my access to slang and it took, like, hours...

... to discover that it might mean Pass the Buck or Please Text Back. Or, possibly, Powers That Be.

But P.T. Barnum would do as well.

[NealK]

128. I think you're onto something.

"There's a sucker born every minute." - P.T. Barnum

(They made me post this as well!)

[octothorpe]

22. That was my fault...

I work for the CIA team assigned to your ISP. I was trying to block your neighbor who was onto our false flag operation in Boston, but I accidentally got the IPs mixed up. I put you on a list so that it doesn't happen again.

[dixiegrrrrl]

121. Now THAT's what I call transparency in Gov't!

WTG, Obama!!!!!

[Electric Monk]

23. Does youtube still work alright for you?

[randome]

33. Those were the days...

[liberalhistorian]

87. LOL, boy does that bring

back some childhood memories! This should definitely be the OP's theme song. Poor thing, maybe he DOES need to go to the funny farm. Or at least get his tin foil hats readjusted, I think they may be on just a bit too tight.

[Hekate]

101. Oh my gods the memories!

[LanternWaste]

25. Did this happen before or after the Boston PD helicopter shot through your door

Did this happen before or after the Boston PD helicopter shot through your door to find and destroy your civil rights, your privacy, your milk, and your well-written and quite righteous manifesto?

[AverageJoe90]

92. Lulz, man. n/t

[Gravitycollapse]

26. I think your ISP just sucks. Get a new one.

[Coyotl]

27. It could be the ads

If you are getting ads in your DU pages, they can have scripts that stop the page from loading until the ad server does its BS

[Gravitycollapse]

30. This is why you should get Ad Blocker.

[Warpy]

38. It's why you toss the site a few bucks and get a STAR

Pay for the privilege and the ads just go poof.

[xmas74]

85. Mine expired

but now that I've been called back from a lay-off I plan on sending a few bucks along with my first paycheck!

Hooray!

[Warpy]

95. Good! I wish they'd restore the feature that allowed

those of us with a few bucks to spare to buy stars for folks who didn't.

[Hekate]

102. Ahh, the OP does not have a STAR

Hmmmmm.

[Tree-Hugger]

41. Get a star

That's what I did. Supports this site and it loads way faster during heavy traffic times. This site was nearly impossible for me to load during the weeks before the election, so I upgraded to a star membership.

[HappyMe]

28. Paranoia runs deep.

That's a big load of insulting crap you posted. Good luck.

[SidDithers]

31. It's TEPCO, man. TEPCO!!...nt

Sid

[Rex]

50. U R on uber auto ignoredz now doubleplus sadz man!

Why don't even reply if you was just going neener neenerz?! This is series adult stuffzX10! James Bondz stuff!

No neener neenering!


Picture of Secret President giving secret hand gestures of the 24th hierarchy.

[Squinch]

81. This is the best thing since the duck playing with the cat in the shark suit on the roomba.

[randome]

34. Weird. I was at a university a few days ago.

Never been there before. I logged into their guest account and everything loaded fine EXCEPT DU. It wasn't that big a deal to me so I didn't bother to investigate. But I wonder if the university itself had DU blocked for some reason.

Other news sites were fine.

But an ISP would not be blocking news sites at all.

[Gravitycollapse]

36. I spend 5 days a week on the campus of the largest public university in the US.

Never had a problem exclusively loading DU.

[LanternWaste]

39. I think people may often assign nefarious motivations and attributes to unnamed agencies and other e

I think people may often assign nefarious motivations and attributes to unnamed agencies and other entities in order to tell ourselves we are actually primary players and stars in a political-thriller movie instead of simply and sedately living our lives-- in or not in quiet desperation.

A slowly loading page or a glitch in a server is so much less dramatic than the imaginary bullseye on our foreheads-- that very forehead being targeted as we type by a shadow helicopter who is accessing, collating, and assessing every word we right... (and every thought we think too, for the paranoiac who must have everything)

[FSogol]

65. +1. The CIA ate all my peanut butter again. The jar is almost empty.

[RKP5637]

118. This is also going on in our area. See post #77. n/t

[RKP5637]

117. This is also going on in our area. See post #77. n/t

[synapticwave]

37. Good Luck...

It's definitely your ISP. Same thing happened to me. I guarantee they are coming for you. Better get a VPN service now before they shut you down completely. I use https://www.boxpn.com/.

good luck fellow conspirator!

<-- in case it's not obvious

[Tree-Hugger]

42. I hadn't noticed

I've been too busy gluing rhinestones to my tinfoil hat to notice if this site is loading slowly. I can tell you that the FOX website would not load videos for me yesterday. I figured it's because my computer is a commie.

[HappyMe]

46. Rhinestones!

Great idea. I was thinking of fixing mine up for the Kentucky Derby.

[Marrah_G]

70. I suggest gold foil over the tin foil

That way when the economy completely collapses you are totally covered......

[randome]

52. Better protect your mouse, too. That's another way they can get to you.

[notadmblnd]

57. Chrystal, Swarovski chrystal

They're the sparkeliest.

[Apophis]

43. They're going to get you (all three).

[Gravitycollapse]

48. Purity of Essence.

[backscatter712]

49. These sorts of things are usually technical glitches, not hostile action.

Or maybe Skinner hit you with the hellban, and DU itself is toying with you!

[HappyMe]

51. Ssshhh!

The Sparrow flies at noon!

[backscatter712]

54. African or European? n/t

[HappyMe]

55. You're a peein.

[FSogol]

112. and Youth in Asia

[RKP5637]

119. This is also going on in our area. See post #77. n/t

[graham4anything]

56. Isn't the answer to not post conspiracy theories denying Boston and Conn. happened?

for those that post that crap.

[Nabbysensei]

58. People can..

People can and do convince themselves of almost anything,given the right circumstances.

[zappaman]

61. Heh

I blame BUSHCO.

[greytdemocrat]

62. Yep.

Clearly BFEE related.

[Uzair]

63. Finished with my woman...

...cause she couldn't help me with my mind....

[markpkessinger]

66. Did you try clearing out your browser's cache and deleting cookies?

Old stuff hanging around in a browser's cache can cause all sorts of havoc with certain sites. The procedure varies depending on the browser, but basically you (1) delete the cache; (2) delete any cookies related to the site you are having trouble with; and then (3) close and reopen your browser.

[REP]

71. Just to be extra sure, drag hard drive into trash

Click "okay"

[REP]

67. I must be hell-raiser #1 because sometimes the server stops responding altogether

Or wait, maybe I know how this shit actually works.

I've been online since you placed the telephone handset into the modem, n00b.

[H2O Man]

73. comic genius

[octothorpe]

76. I was assuming this was a joke at first, but now I'm not so sure...

If serious, perhaps my lame posts were in bad taste. I really don't want to contribute to or mock anyone's serious delusions.

[RKP5637]

79. See post #77. n/t

[RKP5637]

77. I had that happen here in red/red land! When loading the URL for DU I suddenly

Last edited Wed May 1, 2013, 11:44 AM - Edit history (2)

started getting something like URL invalid, and their DNS server listed DU as an invalid lookup. It really does no good to complain to the ISP here. I switched my DNS to OpenDNS and the problem cleared. I also use VPN. OpenDNS is generally all one needs.

For more information on this see: DNS hijacking (this is very very real) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_hijacking

DNS hijacking or DNS redirection is the practice of subverting the resolution of Domain Name System (DNS) queries. This can be achieved by malware that overrides a computer's TCP/IP configuration to point at a rogue DNS server under the control of an attacker, or through modifying the behaviour of a trusted DNS server so that it does not comply with internet standards.
These modifications may be made for malicious purposes such as phishing, or for self-serving purposes by Internet service providers (ISPs) to direct users' web traffic to the ISP's own web servers where advertisements can be served, statistics collected, or other purposes of the ISP; and by DNS service providers to block access to selected domains as a form of censorship.

PS: DU was just one of many. Also, it's a revenue generator for some ISPs (advertising - clicks). Search on the net some and all of this is quite well documented. Here, they went one step further than that. Generally using OpenDNS for DNS instead of ones ISP DNS is all that's needed. One can also set their router to use OpenDNS for DNS for all devices on that respective router. It's easy to get paranoid in red/red land ... but giving this ISP some credit, I think they were doing it for ad-click-revenue. They might be targeting frequented sites by users so they get lots of redirects for revenue.

This was not malware, it was specific to the ISP here and their advertising. We also run rather secure systems.

[backscatter712]

130. You can use OpenDNS or Google's DNS servers.

Generally, if you're using a router, there should be a setting in your router's config pages to set a static DNS server & backup server.

For OpenDNS, the servers are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

For Google, their DNS servers are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

Even when your own ISP isn't doing shenanigans, using OpenDNS or Google for your DNS may give you a small performance boost.

[RKP5637]

133. Yep, that's what I did awhile back ... to OpenDNS via the routers. Never been a problem since!

[bluedigger]

137. If only there were some way you could get the word out about this.

Have you let anyone else know about this important post?

[RKP5637]

138. Only on DU via this thread. I don't know how prevalent this is across internet-land. I've seen some

blogs talking about it ... I had no idea it was going on ... and when it first happen here it was a major WTF. At first, I thought DU was down. ... then I thought it was my system. Then I saw it was across all systems here ... that's when I started researching it some on the net ... initially I thought I was getting a bit too paranoid about it all.

[RobertEarl]

82. Could not help but notice...

Many of the names on replies here with one line responses focused on me, and not the message, are some who have reacted the same when I posted about Fukushima, e-Vote theft, and anti-Bush.

Guess what, they were wrong about Fukushima, e-Vote theft and wrong about protecting Bush, whose administration was the most criminal ever.

So, readers keep that in mind.


I have a statistics box that shows the kbs. Here's the thing, my average speed in usually about 300kbs. The Big sites still load that fast. Images on and all. Du is averaging 10 kbs, with many seconds dead gaps.

For years now the data providers have been wanting to divide the internet. The top would be the Big sites; the bankers favorites. And those getting throttled would be the smaller sites like DU. That is history. It's a fact.

And my ISP, a Very big company, has a filtering system offered to customers so that they pick and choose which sites can be accessed. Those are facts and I think for some reason they are practicing on me.

[Electric Monk]

83. Let me get this straight: If someone thinks you're seeing things that aren't there about Fukushima

then they must also think President* Bush was awesome?

[zappaman]

91. "and wrong about protecting Bush"

Yes, all the DUers "protecting Bush".

[uppityperson]

94. I've resisted posting so far but what are you saying? What DUers protected Bush? Who was wrong about

e-voting theft? Which of the Many One Line Response posters do you mean? What?

Finally, what company do you work for? Does it happen when you try to access DU from "not at work"?

[TroglodyteScholar]

105. Absolutely delusional thinking.

Yes, ISPs are *capable* of filtering traffic, but what makes you so special that they would "practice" on you?

And why not block DU altogether? Why am I still seeing your posts if you're the victim of some terrible conspiracy?

My guess is you've just got something wrong with your computer or network, and you'd rather be really really dramatic rather than find the actual issue.

You, in the big scheme, are not that important to "them."

[pintobean]

109. "they are practicing on me"

It's possible that that happened years ago.


I'm adding this text to prevent this from being a one line response. I wouldn't want you to think I'm working for your ISP.

[FSogol]

113. Stop Protecting Bush

[stevenleser]

110. When you load DU, does it look like this...???

[NealK]

129. It happened to me once.

Then I realized that the ad blocker had stopped working for some reason.

[Stinky The Clown]

86. Oh yeah? Well lemme tell ya what *real* trouble is . . . . my laptop is leaking out of the USB ports

I am constantly blowing datadust off the table it sits on. I put it into my briefcase once and when I went through the TSA checkpoint at the airport, they got all upset and tested the dust. I was made to go thru the peep show machine three times.

Seriously though. The USB ports are a sort Internet Black Hole. If this leak keeps up, it may tilt the whole Internet toward my laptop, following this obvious low pressure point.

[MrMickeysMom]

89. That's good...

You must realize though, that the USB ports that became sort of a black hole could never have reached that status, were it not for the efforts of a wm asshole...

[ohheckyeah]

93. The only way this thread could be better would be

to read it while stoned.

[Marr]

100. Could be a node down between you and DU.

That will effect some users and not others. They can be next door to each other and experience different connection problems.

[Hekate]

104. Turn off the power strip. Unplug your computer from the wall outlet.

Plug back in, reboot.

Works for me.

Also, stop trying to access DU from your workstation.

--> want some?

[defacto7]

106. I run a fair size block of IP addresses

I do my own DNS, reverse, the works. I find issues that are unexplained by the sources and have to circumvent those nodes to get the best throughput. There are tracking sites that make life hell for a few but not all, and I have to find ways around them like, edge.quantserve and pixel.quantserve. These guys don't allow you to download sites for 1 or 2 minutes unless you give them the tracking info they want... and they do a great job of getting away with it and making Internet traffic hell. Try turning off your java script and reloading the page. That will get you around the tracking hangs. Turn java back on when you need it. See what happens. Sometimes the magic works.

[RKP5637]

122. Thank you for your sanity! We had similar problems as the OP and

we traced it to the ISP having redirected searches for advertising and also for redirecting a number of democratic sites as invalid (and others). Some ISPs do this as a revenue generator ... for clicks. So, they redirect the DNS for lookups ... here, they went one step further and started listing a number of sites as invalid including DU. In my post #77 is what we did. Thanks for your sanity. So many of the replies to the OP are silly.

[trumad]

108. I must say that in my 12 years here at DU..

You're one of the oddest members that have ever hit this forum.

Now get out of your basement and play in the park today.

[FSogol]

111. At least he is not due beer and travel money...

and many experiences.

<Insert Dire Straits video library here>

[SidDithers]

120. Maybe it's your username...

Try logging out, and log in with your old account, the one you abandoned in Feb 2012.

See if you have the same problem using your old username.

Sid

[zappaman]

131. That's good advice!

Let's hope it helps the poster out!

[NealK]

139. Why would someone abandon an account for another?

Oh no... you don't mean...

[MineralMan]

126. No, probably not.

[RKP5637]

134. See #77. There's some stuff going on. n/t