banned in Korea - help

Hi Mark,

Are you sure your site is blocked in ALL public schools?

The reason I ask is because while I was in Korea, I had many problems with accessing my own sites. But, my sites weren't blocked by the government. It was actually an issue with the ISP. Just a couple of weeks ago, the sites were blocked again. Then 1 day later, they were accessible.

But a few years ago, my sites would get blocked for days/weeks. I would have to write my ISP over and over and over again in order for them to remove whatever filter they had in place. It was definitely related to them because they acknowledged the filter and unblocked my sites (which all shared the same IP address).

If you have the luxury of finding a few users in different public schools, I would see if they all experience the same results. If they have mixed results, I would guess that it's an ISP issue, not a government ban issue.

Hope this helps,

Eric

Hi Mark

All works fine at my school in Gyeonggi - Gwangju city region. It probably depends on which internet filter particular schools are using. I know the one at our school blocks the Encyclopaedia Britannica and few other sites for no apparent reason, but as mentioned yours has no problems and I'm looking at it now.

Eric and Mikepass - Thanks for your replies. I now assume it must be a city level thing with their SafeNet type software.

I'll see what else I can find out and work on that filter issue. Thanks.

If anyone else could check the site, that would be helpful. If not, no worries. 🙂

I wonder why. I am not in Korea, but once I had difficulties getting on your site in China. Now everything is fine. What I did on my sites was to get a dedicated IP address. Are you on shared hosting? It seems when another site on a shared IP messes up, all the other sites on that IP get blocked or filtered out. Goodluck resolving this. It can be a real headache. Sorry mate!

kisito wrote:I wonder why. I am not in Korea, but once I had difficulties getting on your site in China. Now everything is fine. What I did on my sites was to get a dedicated IP address. Are you on shared hosting? It seems when another site on a shared IP messes up, all the other sites on that IP get blocked or filtered out. Goodluck resolving this. It can be a real headache. Sorry mate!

Kiso - Thanks. That makes sense. It is a shared host and with all of the sites it probably would be best to get a dedicated IP, so something like that doesn't happen.

Although, if it is one of the sites then they'd all be blocked (which isn't the case here, my other sites show up fine - so I'm told.)

Anyway, I appreciate the help. Now I just need to find time to resolve it ...

(I like the new site, btw. It's very slick.)

Hi Mark
I'm sorry not to have a solution to your problem, I just dropped to say that MES is an excellent site and my primary teacher materials' resource (didn't realize it was actually yours untill now)🙂

Thanks Mark for those great sites. I hope you find a solution soon. Your sites are a generous donation to the ESL community. Even if the problem is not the issue of dedicated IP, I recommend you upgrade to dedicated IP. There are many horror stories with shared hosting on the same IP. Some sites even get banned from Google because someone on the shared IP was causing trouble. The filtering technologies used on the web all seem to work in the same way - ban a troublesome site by banning the IP, irrespective of the other good sites hosted on the same IP. I used to have problems with shared IPs that I no longer have. Definitely something to consider.

Beatrix wrote:Hi Mark
I'm sorry not to have a solution to your problem, I just dropped to say that MES is an excellent site and my primary teacher materials' resource

Beatrix - Thanks. I appreciate the nice comments about the site.

Beatrix wrote:(didn't realize it was actually yours untill now)🙂

I bet a few things make a lot more sense now 🙂

kisito wrote:Thanks Mark for those great sites. I hope you find a solution soon. ... I recommend you upgrade to dedicated IP. ... I used to have problems with shared IPs that I no longer have. Definitely something to consider.

Kisito - Thanks. i'm going to look into this fall. With all of the sites I have, I probably should be taking this a little more seriously anyway 😂

mesmark wrote:Beatrix - Thanks. I appreciate the nice comments about the site.

I bet a few things make a lot more sense now 🙂

hehe no problem. your site still remains my main teaching resource

If your visitors are from Korea it is always a good Idea to host your site in south Korea, the location of your host and visitors is important in downloading,uploading and speed of your website. You can even host at least one subdomain (just the part of your website which is visited by Koreans)

In korea you can hardly find any web hosting company with proper English support or English control panel but have at look at Internet Brothers south KoreaWeb Hosting in Korea
they offer hosting with complete English support and panel like US hosting companies. Also make sure you visit their discount coupon page . I think they can help you in many ways too .

I just wanted to say that I'm in Poland I love your flashcards. I've used them in addition to whatever text we're using when I have a class with little kids. They also LOVE them.

They laugh at their cuteness (the animals esp but all the people/jobs are entertaining as well) and I like the fact that you have all of the easy ones but also some lesser well-known ones that challenge the faster kids.

I'm glad to find this website. I've just stumbled on it today.

mesmark wrote:Sorry about this personal request here, but I know a lot of users on eslHQ are in Korea.

It seems my website MES-English.com is banned in Korea if you try to access it from the public schools. I have contacted the Korea Communication Standards Commission and they tell me they aren't blocking the site.

I assume it must be the Education Ministry or some central Board of Education software that's blocking the site.

Does anyone know who I might be able to contact or who the SafeNet type software provider for the schools might be?

Thanks.

Hey, I'm on it, somewhat. I have a few friends in elementary schools. I also have access to some in public schools. I will ask them to try and reach your site and I'll get back to you asap.

teachingenglishmadeeasy wrote:Hey, I'm on it, somewhat. I have a few friends in elementary schools. I also have access to some in public schools. I will ask them to try and reach your site and I'll get back to you asap.

Thanks! I really appreciate it.

I did hear back from one of the original people who reported the problem. He said that site was back up last friday. He said he's in the Chungnam Province.

justflyingin wrote:I just wanted to say that I'm in Poland I love your flashcards. I've used them in addition to whatever text we're using when I have a class with little kids. They also LOVE them.

They laugh at their cuteness (the animals esp but all the people/jobs are entertaining as well) and I like the fact that you have all of the easy ones but also some lesser well-known ones that challenge the faster kids.

i'm glad you like the materials and it's great to hear that they have gone over well with the students.

I'm still waiting on the couple that i know work in the public school system. Have you heard anything yet?

teachingenglishmadeeasy wrote:I'm still waiting on the couple that i know work in the public school system. Have you heard anything yet?

I have heard from a couple people that the site is back up and I haven't gotten any further emails saying the site is down. So, maybe everything is OK now.

Thanks for checking though and if your friends report back, please let me know.

I teach in a public school in Seoul and I can't access your site.

Caesar1313 wrote:I teach in a public school in Seoul and I can't access your site.

That's bad news but thanks for letting me know.

Can you tell me where in are in S. Korea? Also, does the site just time out or do you get some sort of security message?

Sorry, never mind about the "where" part. I just read more carefully and see that you wrote "in Seoul" 🤦

Haha no prob. No security message it just won't load.

Well, it seems MES is coming back online here and there. Some of the school security systems still block it but people are using proxy servers to get around that.

Anyway, I really appreciate everyone's feedback on that.