Last year we had quite a few attacks on SnitchSeeker.com's website. I'm not going to detail what and where, because who knows, the hackers might still be around and we don't really want them to alert them about this.
As a result of those website-related issues (which is due mostly because the user interface for SS is pretty outdated - yes, something we're very slowly working to upgrade as well sometime this year... more on that when it actually happens). SS's forums being outdated has made it vulnerable to attack, understandably. This is the long and short of it.
How does this affect users and visitors? Well, we signed up for a security package, and one that monitors and blocks any suspicious activity. We've even geoblocked a couple of places because of numerous attacks from this from various locations and IP addresses (but we can easily overwrite that for legit readers and members who are not shady hackers).
There's good and not so great news with this new security package.
The good news is, well, we're not getting any suspicious activity anymore, or hacks (annoying bots don't count, those will always be around, unfortunately).
The not so great news is that the security package has set up a huge IP blacklist for a lot of people - members, visitors, staff, etc - and so we have to go and manually whitelist/allow people to be able to visit the site. This is an easy enough process, but requires a bit of information on your part as readers and members (yes, I realize that those who can't get on the site can't see this, so this will also be posted across our social media pages).
What we require to white list is your username if you're a member, and your IP address. Don't know what your IP is? You can find it here (it's that random set of numbers that looks like 123.45.678.9):
http://whatismyipaddress.com/
The best way to send this over to us, is either to PM myself or other staffers, or better yet - contact us straight through social media. Send us a DM on Twitter with your username/IP address, or do the same on our Facebook page. If you're not following us on FB or Twitter... please do! :D
The most important thing here is making sure readers, visitors, and members have a great experience across SnitchSeeker without worry of any suspicious activity on the website. We might be a bit slow with stuff, but we promise to make your Wizarding world experience a good one!
You can request a whitelist in the comments below, but I would recommend you send that kind of information through a private setting (PM here, DM on social, etc). I hope this answers some questions, and again, I can't stress how sorry we are for the hassle this has caused members and readers.
