Country IP Blocks™

How to use Country IP Blocks

You can block the networks of any country on the planet. Whether you want to block China, block Russia, Block India or even United States networks, we have the solution.

Country IP Blocks provides you with the ability to block a country or countries from your network and websites. Whether you want to deny IPv4 addresses based on your incoming traffic or become proactive by limiting your internet traffic to specific countries we can help you. Here we will briefly describe our services and how to use them.

Country IP Blocks provides Access Control Lists for more than 240 countries and in nine different formats: Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR), Netmask, IP Range, .htaccess deny, .htaccess allow, Decimal/CIDR, Hex/CIDR, Cisco ACL, PeerGuardian2.

There are several ways to access our data.

On the right column of every page you see a section entitled Select Format. In this section you pick the format in which you would like to receive your data. Beneath this is a section called Select Countries. You can select one or more countries. To select a single country, find and click on the country you. To select more than one country press and hold down the CTRL key and then click on as many countries as you would like.

After making your format and country selections, press the Choose Countries button and your Access Control Lists will automatically generate for you. Your lists will be sorted by country and IP in ascending format.

You may also access country lists from the Country Blocks format pages:

CIDR http://www.countryipblocks.net/country-blocks/cidr/

Netmask http://www.countryipblocks.net/country-blocks/19-2/

IP Range http://www.countryipblocks.net/country-blocks/ip-range-format/

.htaccess allow http://www.countryipblocks.net/country-blocks/htaccess-allow-format/

.htaccess deny http://www.countryipblocks.net/country-blocks/htaccess-deny-format/

Hex/CIDR http://www.countryipblocks.net/country-blocks/hexcidr-format/

Decimal/CIDR http://www.countryipblocks.net/country-blocks/decimalcidr-format/

Cisco ACL http://www.countryipblocks.net/country-blocks/cisco-acl-format/

PeerGuardian2 http://www.countryipblocks.net/country-blocks/pg2-format/

We also offer automated access, though this will be replaced with other services in 2012.

Searchable

Our database is searchable. On the right column we have two search boxes you can use to enter IP addresses to find out where they are located: country, network and regional internet registry.

Proxies:

Country IP Blocks also partially maintains a proxy list by country. This can be found here: http://www.countryipblocks.net/proxies/

For Premium and Premium Plus members we will be offering additional tools, including custom ACL’s, aggregated ip ranges by country, continent and regional internet registry. You will be able to select your list through control panel access and we will dynamically create your ACL’s daily. You will then be able to access these lists through your control panel or dynamic URL.

If you use Country IP Blocks please consider linking to our website.

At Country IP Blocks we get lots of email from individuals with complaints about blocking a country. The complaints state that it is not fair to prevent access from anyone, anywhere at any time. They go on to state it is racist, discriminatory, bigoted, mean-spirited and outright unfair. We appreciate and understand their emotional arguments.

The Country IP Blocks database has no flag for the ethnic, religious, racial, sexual, backgrounds of the people of any country.

Network administrators and website owners making the argument the internet should be wide open, with no preventative blocks, no restrictions of any kind, with free unlimited access to their networks and websites are not bad people, but they are naïve. They also have a higher likelihood to become known as hacker victims.

An uninformed emotional argument leads to bad security.

The decision to protect your electronic resources, websites, servers, network appliances, etc., must be based on logic and reason, not emotional hyperbole.
On any given day, the vast majority of network hacks, comments, and email spam, originate from a handful of countries. China is an excellent example. Do a Google search on Chinese hackers. There are myriad articles on the danger posed by traffic originating from China. On the Country IP Blocks Metric Scale of Dangerous Countries, China scores a ten (scale of 1 – 10).

If network traffic from China poses a more significant risk than say, network traffic from Antigua & Barbuda, you may want to ask yourself whether network traffic from China has any value to your network or website. The question should not be one of fair or unfair. The question should be one based on assumed risk versus potential rewards.

Are you doing business in China? Then you need to decide whether the potential for reward is worth the level of risk you assume when you accept email, web or network traffic originating from China or any country.

Your firewall, IPtables, Cisco ACL, .htaccess file or other security solution does not detect the race, religion, ethnicity, personal grooming habits, eye color, intelligence level, sexual preference, honesty, integrity or general goodwill of the person or persons behind traffic coming in to your network, website or email box. It does not care because unlike humans it does not have the capacity to make emotional decisions. The decisions it makes are logical, based on rule sets, patterns and access control lists. By nature, a firewall discriminates.

Security decisions are important. They should be made in advance of launching your electronic enterprise. They are a constant, but they are also dynamic.
At Country IP Blocks we provide access control lists. We provide network data on each country in the world. We provide information on every allocated, active or bogon IP network on the planet. How to use this information is up to you.

Sign up and login to the Country IP Blocks message board and let us know how you make your security decisions.

Over the past several months we have received several requests from those who use our Country IP Blocks database. They want more.

More access to our Country IP Blocks database.

More choices in Country block formats.

More access to our Country IP Database form.

We are redesigning our website to give you the “more” you are looking for.

Our Country IP Blocks database is updated at least daily. This means you get the freshest content available on the internet.

Our formats are available through the form on the sidebar on every page. On our Country IP Database form you simply select a format and then choose one or more countries by highlighting your country choices.

But you can also go directly to the format page you prefer and select individual countries. Our data is in available in seven distinct formats:

• Network/CIDR
• Network/Netmask
• IP Range
• .htaccess deny
• .htaccess allow
• Decimal/CIDR
• Hex/CIDR

The current checksum for each country/format is available on the above pages and we will soon have Country Database and format specific RSS feeds to help you better automate your update processes.

Also coming soon we will be offering network and network management training courses along with online testing and Country IP Block certification.

We are here to meet your needs. Please feel free to join our blog and make comments, ask questions or perhaps answer a question for someone in need of answers.