tl;dr - Patreon deleted my page, refused to elaborate, and Catbox is now short $1,300~ in reoccurring income to pay the bill. Support Catbox Here

I use catbox to post videos and moving webp files to lemmy 😭

edit: to be clear I’m not affiliated with catbox, i just shared

  • hisao@ani.socialEnglish
    231·
    1 day ago

    I hate catbox. I can’t see images posted via catbox because for some reason catbox is very actively and aggressively bans VPNs. Yeah, you heard that right: they ban VPNs, not only for posting, even for viewing! I managed to find one VPN server that worked well… for few weeks. Until it got banned as well. Someone once said catbox is a honeypot. Idk about that, but their VPN policy is definitely honeypot-tier.

    Added: What’s even more funny - imgur also used to ban VPNs, but my current server, at the moment I picked it I choose by criteria that both imgur and catbox and some third service should work, and few weeks later imgur still works while catbox don’t, which means catbox bans VPNs more aggressively than imgur! Really makes you hmmmm.

    Added: After reading SatyrSack reply I’m not sure anymore. Maybe it was too rash to blame Catbox. It’s unclear who or what is responsible for the block, maybe neither the source nor the destination.

      • hisao@ani.socialEnglish
        4·
        1 day ago

        Thanks, this is surprising! I assumed my VPN wouldn’t ever block anything, because I’ve never seen that before, and thus the block was Catbox’s fault, but from what they write in their FAQ I start to question this. Maybe there is some large scale intermediary/middleware/mitm that make this happen. Idk, this is the first time I see anything like this. The server I’m currently using is in Switzerland, but I’ve also had those blocks with multiple VPN servers in other EU countries.

    • Chozo@fedia.io
      82·
      2 days ago

      I’ll be honest, I don’t mind a free file host banning VPNs. Yes, VPNs have tons of legitimate uses, but they also have illegitimate uses that (what I understand to be) a one-man team is likely not prepared to deal with. They already have to deal with CSAM getting uploaded as it is.

      • hisao@ani.socialEnglish
        4·
        1 day ago

        but they also have illegitimate uses that (what I understand to be) a one-man team is likely not prepared to deal with

        This would be somewhat believable excuse if they only blocked uploading/posting under VPNs. But they block viewing under VPNs as well, which you only do if your sole purpose is logging IP addresses of viewers. In this scenario catbox images posted to Lemmy for example, they don’t only reveal your IP the moment they are loaded when you scroll your feed, they also associate it with the site from where the request was initiated (your Lemmy instance).

        • Chozo@fedia.io
          2·
          1 day ago

          This would be somewhat believable excuse if they only blocked uploading/posting under VPNs.

          With CSAM, you want to block uploading and downloading, because both are problematic for a host.

          In this scenario catbox images posted to Lemmy for example, they don’t only reveal your IP the moment they are loaded when you scroll your feed

          I’m 99% sure it doesn’t work that way. The Lemmy instance caches a preview image for posted links. But scrolling past without clicking a link will not expose your IP to Catbox unless you have an auto-preview setting enabled that opens/caches every link you scroll past automatically, which I don’t believe is enabled by default.

          • hisao@ani.socialEnglish
            1·
            1 day ago

            With CSAM, you want to block uploading and downloading, because both are problematic for a host.

            At that point, if such content is already posted there and available for download, it doesn’t matter if it is only allowed to be downloaded via clearnet or VPNs as well. Blocking VPNs doesn’t make any difference here.

            I’m 99% sure it doesn’t work that way. The Lemmy instance caches a preview image for posted links. But scrolling past without clicking a link will not expose your IP to Catbox unless you have an auto-preview setting enabled that opens/caches every link you scroll past automatically, which I don’t believe is enabled by default.

            I’ve seen a debate regarding lemmynsfw with some people asking to turn off caching/proxying for images. I don’t know what’s their current status on this, but on my instance even thumbnails were not visible for catbox images. I’m not sure if it’s disabled or it’s the instance server itself having trouble accessing catbox.

            • Chozo@fedia.io
              1·
              1 day ago

              At that point, if such content is already posted there and available for download, it doesn’t matter if it is only allowed to be downloaded via clearnet or VPNs as well. Blocking VPNs doesn’t make any difference here.

              My understanding is that it’s for tracking/reporting purposes, and to mitigate future offenses by banning those IPs. You can report an IP to an ISP for CSAM violations, but it’s not as useful when the user’s on a VPN.

              I’ve seen a debate regarding lemmynsfw with some people asking to turn off caching/proxying for images. I don’t know what’s their current status on this, but on my instance even thumbnails were not visible for catbox images. I’m not sure if it’s disabled or it’s the instance server itself having trouble accessing catbox.

              Yeah, I’ve also noticed that Catbox links don’t seem to generate previews on Mbin, as well, so I suspect that may be a Catbox block of some sort. That’s interesting… I wonder if that causes a Lemmy instance to attempt a live preview instead of giving you a cached one. If so, that seems like something that probably shouldn’t be in place, IMO.

              • hisao@ani.socialEnglish
                2·
                1 day ago

                My understanding is that it’s for tracking/reporting purposes, and to mitigate future offenses by banning those IPs. You can report an IP to an ISP for CSAM violations, but it’s not as useful when the user’s on a VPN.

                Don’t think even the most extreme actors go that far, link could be opened accidentally, etc…

                Anyway, from what another poster here linked, it looks like Catbox might actually not be banning any VPNs at all on its own, this might be some kind of middleware/routing infrastructure issue.

      • TheOneAndOnly@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        17 hours ago

        Do you use Verizon for Internet? It’s been my experience that the only way I can open catbox links is if I’m not connected solely to Verizon’s network.

    • Wildmimic@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      I don’t know what VPN you use, but i have zero issues running Proton VPN and accessing catbox. Maybe some VPN nodes are used to attack Catbox and they are temp banned?