HardBan

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The HardBan is the main tool of HardSecurity, and the central component of a LifetimeBan. It serves to block a person or group of persons from participating in a site. It is generally implemented by creating a BlackList? of [IP addresses] or IP address ranges whose owners/users have been designated as CommunityExiles, either by community consensus or the site's GodKing administrator. A HardBan is an extremely dangerous tool in the hands of a GodKing that may abuse its power.

There are two levels of HardBan:

Read-only access: The person(s) designated by the IP address [range] can read the site but not participate. This may be applied as a CommunityWarning or punishment to an errant user, or automatically as EditThrottling (part of a SurgeProtector). On some sites that apply AccessLevels, this state of affairs is the default until the user has registered a UserName as PersonalIdentification.
Total ban: The person(s) designated by the IP address [range] is totally prevented from accessing the site.

There are also two durations of HardBan: temporary and permanent (a LifetimeBan). The former is usually implemented as a warning. The latter is implemented as a last resort. The weakness of this strategy is that it just will not work if the person is using different IP addresses which don't fall into any particular range, or has access to more then one HTTP proxy. Attempting to evade a HardBan using an HTTP proxy will fail, however, if it is an OpenProxy and OpenProxy defenses are in place.

The existence of a HardBan implies also the existence of a SoftBan.

Compare: SoftSecurity

HardBan

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