Proxy on route to Rapidshare?

[Ghiraddje]

I've been trying to download a file from Rapidshare for several days, and repeatedly get told:

Your IP address 62.30.249.131 is already downloading a file. Please wait until the download is completed. (Emphasis mine)

The IP address resolves to webcache3-know.server.virginmedia.net

Three separate sites verify my actual IP address, including one which, as I recall, is proxy aware (shows both the proxy and subscriber IPs, such as back when ntl ran an Inktomi proxy network).

It seems like Virgin are simply throttling Rapidshare access, or maybe they have a few sites in their bad books.

Frustrating as Rapidshare see me as effectively downloading non-stop! (On occasions where I do get through, as soon as I hit Download, I get a session error, so I presume someone else has butted in and caused the server to start a new session connected with "my" IP.)

I'm in Hertfordshire, for the record.

[bubblegun]

I don't see that issue here.

tracert to rapidshare:

Tracing route to rs485.rapidshare.com [212.162.2.86]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 7 ms 6 ms 5 ms 10.141.224.1
3 7 ms 7 ms 7 ms osr02uddi-gexxx.network.virginmedia.net [80.3.17.xxx]
4 7 ms 21 ms 7 ms uddi-core-1b-ge-010-0.network.virginmedia.net [80.3.16.129]
5 15 ms 14 ms 17 ms man-bb-b-so-320-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.175.193]
6 52 ms 11 ms 27 ms man-bb-a-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.187.177]
7 20 ms 10 ms 11 ms 212.187.136.125
8 19 ms 23 ms 60 ms ae-4-4.ebr1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.133.102]
9 18 ms 20 ms 34 ms ae-100-100.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.141.166]
10 27 ms 27 ms 29 ms ae-2-2.ebr2.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [4.69.132.134]
11 49 ms 34 ms 36 ms ae-1-100.ebr1.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [4.69.141.169]
12 33 ms 33 ms 32 ms ae-2-2.ebr2.Dusseldorf1.Level3.net [4.69.133.90]
13 39 ms 37 ms * ae-1-100.ebr1.Dusseldorf1.Level3.net [4.69.141.149]
14 34 ms 33 ms 38 ms ae-2-2.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.69.132.138]
15 35 ms 33 ms 34 ms ae-72-72.csw2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.69.140.22]
16 35 ms 48 ms 34 ms ae-2-79.edge4.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.68.23.76]
17 35 ms 35 ms 36 ms 212.162.2.86

Admin Edit (Stuart): Not a good idea to publish your IP.

[darren.b]

A few RapidShare servers identify your IP incorrectly (intentional or bad config?) I have had this problem too. RapidShare will not listen or resolve it, and insist the only way to resolve it is to pay for a premium account.

Well they would, wouldn't they?

[Peter_]

Just a thought is the time correct in the bottom right corner of the screen.

[Welshchris]

I sometimes have to use the Virgin Proxy to access the rapidshare site let alone download and im a premium member lol.

[Ghiraddje]

I tried traceroute, but generally that won't show Web proxies. Traceroute uses ICMP, and presumably the proxy only cares about HTTP/HTTPS (Inktomi was HTTP only, which interfered with logging onto SourceForge as the HTTP and HTTPS IP differed; RapidShare also used a similar trick of comparing the IPs accessing two different ports to see whether the port 80 IP was proxied).

Yes, my PC's clock is correct!!

solcuerda, do you know what RapidShare gave as your IP? Was it similar to what I'm seeing?

[Stuart]

I tried traceroute, but generally that won't show Web proxies. Traceroute uses ICMP, and presumably the proxy only cares about HTTP/HTTPS (Inktomi was HTTP only, which interfered with logging onto SourceForge as the HTTP and HTTPS IP differed; RapidShare also used a similar trick of comparing the IPs accessing two different ports to see whether the port 80 IP was proxied).

Yes, my PC's clock is correct!!

solcuerda, do you know what RapidShare gave as your IP? Was it similar to what I'm seeing?

Proxies generally only cache http requests. Everything else is passed through unaltered (or should be).

Just a thought is the time correct in the bottom right corner of the screen.

That's not the issue. Rapidshare's servers would not have access to check his clock. They use their own.

[bomber_g]

try a tcp traceroute
http://michael.toren.net/code/tcptraceroute/

to see if that shows it

sounds like you'd be better off using newsgroups rather than rapidshare :)

[Ignitionnet]

There's always the slim chance the guy is downloading something legit from Rapidshare. Slim but not impossible ;)

[darren.b]

solcuerda, do you know what RapidShare gave as your IP? Was it similar to what I'm seeing?
Yes it was similar. Rapidshare insisted my ISP was using a proxy, VM Tech Support insisted they were not and said the IP Rapidshare was identifying wasn't a proxy server, but a router on their network.

The problem exists on only one or two of Rapidshare's servers. Can't remember what one I saw it on, rs381.rapidshare.com I think. All the other rs???.rapidshare.com servers worked fine.

[Ghiraddje]

Now that I'm less tired, and paying more attention to traceroute, where one hop has a very similar IP to the one that RapidShare sees:

Tracing route to rs438.rapidshare.com [212.162.2.39]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 8 ms 11 ms 11 ms 10.43.120.1
2 15 ms 14 ms 11 ms lutn-cam-1b-v313.network.virginmedia.net [62.252.67.225]
3 28 ms 11 ms 26 ms lutn-core-1b-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.174.189]
4 19 ms 10 ms 29 ms nth-bb-b-as5-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.175.153]
5 13 ms 20 ms 17 ms lee-bb-a-as2-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.185.102]
6 16 ms 24 ms 18 ms osr01know-pc200.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.178.146]
7 18 ms 25 ms 27 ms wb7301a.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.0.204]
8 19 ms 36 ms 23 ms bir-bb-a-ge-720-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.249.46]
9 42 ms 33 ms 58 ms 168.ge-1-3-3.mpr1.lhr2.uk.above.net [213.161.65.149]
10 27 ms 21 ms 24 ms abv-l3-pni.London1.Level3.net [208.185.188.186]
11 34 ms 17 ms 20 ms ae-34-52.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.139.97]
12 29 ms 24 ms 27 ms ae-2-2.ebr2.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [4.69.132.134]
....
18 31 ms 47 ms 32 ms ae-2-79.edge4.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.68.23.76]
19 34 ms 34 ms 32 ms 212.162.2.39

The IP that RapidShare sees is 62.30.249.131 and this resolves to webcache3-know.server.virginmedia.net.

The question quite simply is whether this is a flaw in RapidShare's look-up (and I have no idea how it would see me as the hop in question) or a Virgin facility.

(PS does anyone else see a load of blank lines after the CODE tag?)

[Matth]

62.30.249.131 is the Virginmedia IWF censor proxy, as discovered during the Wikipedia Virgin Killer controversy.

I guess something on rapidshare has been reported, so now all traffic passes through the great IWF bottleneck.

[Ghiraddje]

PS that host does respond to Web requests as a proxy :)

Interestingly enough, should I access a particular forum that's proxy aware (using HW (http://telcontar.net/Software/HTTPWerkzeug/)), the front page reports, "Your IP address is: my.ip.add.ress / 62.30.249.130"

Not the same IP as RapidShare reports (strangely, off by one) but it suggests that the proxy is not engaged for other sites.

[Edit: Doh, beaten!]

[618]

I know this threat is a month old but thought I wouod register and add comments.

I got the exact same message trying to download and used http://rsplg.com/ to get the file. This site seems to copy the fole from rapidshare to rsplg's server and then you download it from there. Weird how rapidshare said "Your IP address 62.30.249.131" when it is not and I can get other files from rapidshare.

I am with virgin media too

[Ghiraddje]

Well, Matth has explained what's going on :)

[jimidriver]

I think I have the answer to this 62.30.249.131 problem that rapidshare is using to thwart us.
Having unusually been faced with it I started downloading using an automatic downloader.
First I put a short download to get it going. No problem. When it was finished my next waiting prog was AVS DVD Copy. This is fairly new and somebody or somehow it has been stopped from downloading by using this 62.30.249.131 ISP thing.
Then I chose another short old prog. After the normal wait it downloaded easily. Then AVS DVD Copy again. "already downloading" says my ISP 62.30.249.131
And so on for ages. It is obvious they have found this way to stop us getting the newer? stuff etc.

Bill.

[Ignitionnet]

Rapidshare don't care. If they cared that you or anyone else were downloading dodgy stuff from there they'd do something about it.

Basically you got routed through that server at 62.30.249.131 because someone uploaded kiddie porn to RS as per usual. That kiddie porn URL was put onto the IWF watch list (http://www.iwf.org.uk/) meaning that Rapidshare server would be routed through 62.30.249.131 on the VM network as it's part of the Cleanfeed anti-kiddie porn filter. This means RS see multiple connections coming from that single IP address with all the restrictions that carries.

Rapidshare either using the X-Forwarded-For header in HTTP or doing more to prevent their service being a festering store of kiddie porn is the solution to the issue. Unlikely they'll do the second one though as most of their income comes from kiddie porn and warez and unlikely they'll do the first one given they've known about the issue for years.

[jimidriver]

Did you miss that I said "I downloaded a small prog first. Then AVS after?"
So Rapidshare wasn't routing me anywhere.
If it allowed the first but not the second it HAD to do with the second.... Not rapidshare complete.

So Small... OK
AVS... "you are still downloading".
Small again.... OK
AVS ... "you are still downloading".

[III]

Broadbandings, idea!

lll@XaN ~> nslookup 62.30.249.131
Server: 208.67.222.222
Address: 208.67.222.222#53

Non-authoritative answer:
131.249.30.62.in-addr.arpa name = webcache3-know.server.virginmedia.net.

Authoritative answers can be found from:

lll@XaN ~> traceroute 62.30.249.131
traceroute to 62.30.249.131 (62.30.249.131), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254) 61.427 ms 59.554 ms 57.943 ms
2 * * *
3 10.1.2.169 (10.1.2.169) 38.034 ms 42.946 ms 43.261 ms
4 159-126-245-83.packetexchange.net (83.245.126.159) 43.378 ms 43.842 ms 43.898 ms
5 gfd-bb-b-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.185.77) 51.185 ms 51.497 ms 51.843 ms
6 man-bb-a-ae3-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.175.145) 55.758 ms 32.349 ms 33.841 ms
7 man-bb-b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.187.178) 34.931 ms 43.178 ms 42.918 ms
8 osr02know-pc200.network.virginmedia.net (195.182.178.150) 44.688 ms 39.228 ms 43.097 ms
9 wb7301a.network.virginmedia.net (62.30.0.204) 44.211 ms 42.143 ms 40.520 ms
10 webcache3-know.server.virginmedia.net (62.30.249.131) 40.421 ms 34.634 ms 33.888 ms

[Ignitionnet]

Did you miss that I said "I downloaded a small prog first. Then AVS after?"
So Rapidshare wasn't routing me anywhere.
If it allowed the first but not the second it HAD to do with the second.... Not rapidshare complete.

So Small... OK
AVS... "you are still downloading".
Small again.... OK
AVS ... "you are still downloading".

No, I got that, but you must have missed that I said Rapidshare will see all connections as coming from that one IP address, 62.30.249.131, so if someone else or other people are also downloading the fresh new warez Rapidshare will see it as multiple downloads.

They could avoid this through both the ways I mentioned above but have known about the X-Forwarded-For solution for years and not done it and can't afford to start blocking people who are paying for premium accounts and uploading kiddie porn, etc, as it would mean filtering the content uploaded to them losing them all the warez monkeys as well.

This will only affect the particular RS server hosting the reported kiddie porn, so other stuff hosted on different RS servers will be unaffected, though knowing RS again most of their servers probably have reported content on them so it's luck of the draw :)