IMPORTANT (updated)
I’ve now changed the security level from “critical” to “high”. Thanks all for your indulgence.
Many of you will have experienced slow response times and/or error messages on Monday.
This morning, things seemed to be going the same way, so I’ve changed a setting in an effort to stop cyberattacks.
Thus some users may face an “are you human?” challenge before being allowed to access the site.
Please don’t see this as an inconvenience as site security is paramount.
Just had this and it was not even a minor nuisance. Thanks.
We can only thank you for all that you are doing Ken.
Ha! Not only did the cybers attack us but they went and inserted lots of avatars into the comments 🤣
The message only flashed briefly and didn’t require me to do anything. No inconvenience. Thank you Ken for keeping this site safe.
An ‘are you human?’ message flahed up on the screen but disappeared before I had time to read it properly and was promptly replaced by the home page. On exiting and re-entering the home page came up straightaway.
What Tim C and KVa said.
I seem to be seeing these repeatedly on the same device and browser and they are intrusive as they take several seconds to complete. I am connected from a UK Virgin connection and am not using a vpn so I would not expect the feature to behave in this way. I’ve also not seen this behaviour on any other site.
In the last hour I’ve seen at least five of these prompts. I would expect the feature to be mostly invisible to the end user in normal usage.
I wonder if something is amiss with the configuration?
Thanks – it was no inconvenience – as others have said
As per allan_c. Thanks for all your work.
Max @8
I have no explanation for that behaviour.
I will change the setting in the fullness of time but I will almost certainly leave it set higher than it previously was.
[On a perhaps unrelated note, how is it that some users now have personalised icons and others not?]
I am having similar problems to Max’s. Having entered the site, I have to go through the procedure every time I click on a page, click on Comments, click to return to Home – in other words I have to verify that I am human repeatedly to undertake even the most basic navigation of the site. I don’t mind going through the measure to access the site, but to have to go through it repeatedly once in is a bloody nuisance. I am using Google Chrome as my default browser. I’m sure the new measure was not intended to work in this way.
… and I had to do through the procedure twice to post a comment, which as come up with no Edit time.
Like most others, I saw a message flash briefly and disappear. There was no inconvenience. Thanks for all you do.
Given the impressive levels of intelligence displayed by setters and bloggers on this site it would have been more appropriate if it had asked “Are you superhuman?”
Thank you for all that you are doing Ken.
Mirrorboy@15 – hahaha! Yes, we are all superhumans here!
Jay@11 Re user icons, see the discussion on avatars at https://www.fifteensquared.net/site-feedback/
Now I’m having to answer the question if I’m a human. I don’t mind that if that’s what it takes.
Ken, I hope you’re not alone with this. Big job.
Max@17 – thanks.
kenmac@10. I don’t know if you’ve changed anything, but the site seems to be far more responsive now, with pages loading almost instantly and no noticeable interaction with Cloudflare. This is both on mobile and desktop, both running Chrome and connected to the same Virgin Media wifi.
Incidentally, please let me take this opportunity to highlight kenmac/Admin’s https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kenmac site. This allows people to donate a small amount to kenmac to say thank you for keeping this site going. This is also linked to from this site, but is quite hidden towards the bottom on mobile devices.
Edit: Note, it did take many seconds to post this comment but again I did not see any Cloudflare interaction. I don’t know how long it normally takes to post comments so this may be normal.
The same here as for Max. Many thanks to you, Ken, if you have intervened to sort this out.
I don’t think avatars add anything useful or attractive to the site.
Avatars?
See https://www.fifteensquared.net/site-feedback/ where there is information and a discussion about the new avatars.
Hi Ken. Security for a popular site such as yours (and ours) is a constant battle. Good luck with with your current issue. If you would like to know what security measures TimesforTheTimes uses (we are also on WordPress) please drop me a line.
kenmac change it back to critical right now.
I got hacked in December last year. Unfortunately I think I’m quite good at dealing with these people because I am IT myself.
But I’ve been fighting for three months. I now have the highest level of security I can get and my computer gets cleaned twice a day. It cost me money, but never mind. They are after me but who is going to win?
They shut me down with the “ring this Microsoft number” scam. I have been an Apple user since 1986. So why would they tell me to ring this strange international number?
So I did.
Some of you may know that I am of Polish heritage but one of the languages I speak (which also makes me good at crosswords!) is Russian.
So I phoned this number and there was somebody speaking English with a terrible East European accent. I was speaking my best English and I was required to “update my details”. My bank details, if you really want to know. Brilliant. So I stopped speaking English and broke into Russian and the bloke on the other end immediately started speaking Russian. By mistake. And then he realised what he’d done and I said, in English: have you got a pen? I will give you my bank details.
I invented a bank, and some account numbers, and I said this is my password: “are you sure you’ve got a pen? My password is very long, I will have to read it out for you.”
I went: “exclamation mark, question mark, asterisk, Q Z A V G B I G D I C K H E A D exclamation mark F U C K capital b O F F…
I was going to carry on but, even though he we was Russian he’d got the message by now.
Stefan
Apologies for the misplaced comment@22: I had followed the link @17 to the Site Feedback thread and thought I was posting there: no idea how it finished up here.
The Ides of March are come.
This has the unfortunate side-effect of blocking people with old computers, so I hope it can be dispensed with later.
Unfortunately this doesn’t work on Firefox (with Standard browser security).
It refuses to accept my claim to be human.
Mind you, various other sites have decided I am a bot and have locked me out, so perhaps Firefox knows something I don’t ….
I’m still able to get in via Microsoft Edge but Firefox is my preferred browser.
Anyone else having troubles convincing their browser they’re not actually AI?