Block a City

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Plugin Support wfpeter

    (@wfpeter)

    4 years ago

    Hi @pasqualerose, thanks for reaching out to us.

    As I expect the user you’re having trouble with doesn’t have a fixed IP, it’ll be difficult to exclude them without also blocking an entire ISP’s IP range, or other users by mistake. As you can see here, city blocking accuracy can be quite difficult to offer as a reliable feature: https://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip2-city-accuracy-comparison?country=&resolution=city&cellular=all

    Your best bet would be to see if you can identify past site visits in your Live Traffic page that correspond to IPs on their spam subscription form submissions. Expand the entry using the “eye” icon and see if you can find unique characteristics like a Hostname, Browser User Agent or Referrer that they always seem to use but are not common across other site visits you’re seeing. This can then be enterd into the Wordfence > Blocking > Custom Pattern section.

    Thanks,

    Peter.

    Thread Starter pasqualerose

    (@pasqualerose)

    4 years ago

    Hi Peter. I will take a look at that option. I really do want to find something that will stop her. It gets annoying.

    Thanks!

    Pat

    Plugin Support wfpeter

    (@wfpeter)

    4 years ago

    Thanks @pasqualerose, it may also be possible to determine an IP range they always fall between that might not be too exclusionary to other site visitors. Their ISP may only offer services in a specific area, for example. You can add a custom message in Wordfence > All Options > Brute Force Protection > Custom text shown on block pages as a catch-all to prompt any legitimate visitors who get caught by this in future to contact you.

    It may be a measure that’s only required for a number of months until they decide it’s not worth trying. If you have any further Wordfence questions in future by all means start a new topic and we’ll be glad to help out any time.

    Thanks,

    Peter.

    Thread Starter pasqualerose

    (@pasqualerose)

    4 years ago

    I do think anything I would set up to stop her would only need to be for a few months or so, until I think she would stop trying.

    In order to use the live traffic, do I have to set it for “all traffic”? Currently it is set to “Security only.”

    Thanks again,

    Pat

    generosus

    (@generosus)

    4 years ago

    @pasqualerose,

    If you don’t mind, please allow me to suggest several possible solutions: (perhaps you’ve tried them already)

    (1) Contact the Abuse Department of the host or email client the offender is using. Once they confirm the offender violated their TOS, they will issue a warning or shut down the offender’s email or internet privileges. For starters, did you follow Mailchimp’s abuse instructions?

    (2) Temporarily switch to another email subscription plugin or service where the offender’s IP addresses are captured in the backend. If the IPs used by the offender follow a pattern, you can block them using Wordfence.

    (3) Contact your host. They may be able to share additional information that may help you block the offender.

    Note: Using Geolocation techniques to block a city or region are never accurate (usually, 10-80% accurate). Not worth it, especially if you’re seeking to block only one offender.

    Hope this helps a bit.

    Cheerio.

    generosus

    (@generosus)

    4 years ago

    @pasqualerose,

    Almost forgot …

    Yes, I would set Live Traffic to “All Traffic” to improve your chances of detecting the offender’s visiting patterns, location(s), and IP address(es).

    Cheerio.

    Thread Starter pasqualerose

    (@pasqualerose)

    4 years ago

    Thanks Generous. I will definitely contact the various email host she uses. I could even give them a list of email addresses that she has previously used. She likes to use Att.net and Yahoo.

    I have contacted MailChimp about this but never at the abuse@mailchimp.com email address. I will contact them at that address and see what they say. They will probably know more than the person I get in a chat box.

    I will also look into a subscription plug-in that will record an IP address and I’ll have to set live traffic to all traffic.

    Thanks,

    Pat

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