How do I know if my DNS (or whatever) is blocked?

When browsing: can't get into some sites ..

[larryhatch]

Some blog in Europe linked and/or hotlinked into my pages / images.
I tried to visit the site to see what's up.
My browser (Firefox) calls up the site, then just hangs up .. an endless wait
and then if finally gives up without ever showing anything.

Does this sound like the site did a server-side or .htaccess type block
on my DNS range, country of origin, browser, user-agent or some such?

If not, what DOES happen when I AM blocked?
Shouldn't I get a 403 or 404 error or something along those lines? -Larry

[Span]

Yes, I think you should get a 403 if you're blocked. Although I have read about ways to make requests time out. Just wait a few hours, maybe some router is down. When it happens to me I use something like wannabrowser or the w3 validator. Those servers are on other locations than I am.

[larryhatch]

Thanks Span! Yes, good idea. A validator could get thru even if I'm blocked.
It acts more like a time-out. Maybe the site is hosted in somebody's broom closet. -Larry

[larryhatch]

Some news: The W3C validator got thru fine, a had it display the source code too.
I could find no reference to my files, so they must have changed that.
The site failed validation miserably (no surprise) not even a valid doctype.
I can't browse in, even to the stripped down base url www.#*$!xxxx.pl (this is in Poland)

Maybe they just blocked all non-polish visitors.
What I don't understand is the timeout instead of a 403 error as expected. -Larry

[Span]

If the W3 validator can get there, they didn't block non-polish visitors. Did you try another browser? Maybe FireFox chokes in the non-valid code, or maybe you were in the middle of a DDos attack, who knows..

[larryhatch]

W3c got in very fast, so yes blocking non polish visitors seems to be out.
For now, I'd bet on FF choking on the code. Maybe IE will get in. -Larry

[larryhatch]

OK. Now I tried IE. Same thing. "Loading page ..",
endlessly.
With IE, the fault transfers to some MSN page apologizing that they could not find the page.
I'm starting to wonder if they disallowed a large range of DNS numbers.
Maybe there were too many complaints about content and images or whatever. -Larry

[andrea99]

I use AOL as proxy, always a new IP. This along with image hosting, and back-up/travel ISP make AOL worth the monthly charge for me--I don't use it for much else.