Healthy Influence – Persuasion Blog

If you have Malwarebytes version 1.4, you may not be able to access this website and blog because according to the smart guys at Malwarebytes, this is a dangerous website that may do harm to your computer.  And the reason they know this is a dangerous website is not because they checked it out.  That would require testing the files on the site.  This is apparently a concept the smart guys at Malwarebytes have rejected.

They instead know it because a proven Bad Actor (who shall remain anonymous here) happens to share my static IP address as assigned by the hosting service, GoDaddy, I share with the Bad Actor.  And since I, and likely hundreds if not thousands of other GoDaddy customers, share an IP address with a Bad Actor it is only logical, ethical, legal, and wise to block all of us and label us as Bad Actors, too.

See, hosting services like GoDaddy assign the same static IP number to many different domain names and then assign a dynamic IP number when the website is actually accessed.  This happens so fast that no one knows what’s going on, but it saves the hosting service cost and allows them to offer a cheaper service.  The problem is that hundreds, sometimes thousands of websites with different names, will share the same IP address.  And in this mass of many websites, sometimes Bad Actors also appear.

The smart guys are Malwarebytes figured that if they block the static IP address assigned to the Bad Actor, they can make your Internet experience safer.  And that’s true.  But, they also block access to my safe website and the websites of hundreds and thousands of other Good Actors simultaneously.

Now, Malwarebytes understands this problem and in the way of smart guys everywhere, they developed a solution.  See, if your website gets blocked and labeled as a Bad Actor, all you have to do is visit the Malwarebytes website, go to a public discussion board, explain the details of your problem, and Malwarebytes will think about it.

So, Malwarebytes will label me as a Bad Actor and the owner and purveyor of a Untrustworthy Website which means no one with the Malwarebytes software will be able to visit my website.  This clearly infringes on my free speech rights, libels me, and limits my business opportunities without any proven bad actions on my part.  Just through random chance and the presence of a proven Bad Actor sharing my IP address, Malwarebytes will shut me down and call me a threat.  And, if I bring this to their attention, they will think about it.

Look, I appreciate the problem of Internet viruses and malware.  It’s a serious problem, like having muggers and pickpockets working the Mall of the Americas.  Everyone gets the problem.

But the Malwarebytes solution is at once unethical, illegal, and ultimately ineffective.  Bad Actors have many tricks to evade WannaBeGoodGuys like Malwarebytes.  It’s likely that the Bad Actor who shares my IP address has already moved on and just left up his old website to stick a thumb in everyone else’s eye.  So, this IP protection scheme has obvious holes in it, yet Malwarebytes persists with it.  Even with the damage it causes to innocent parties.

I would encourage you to always protect your computer when you’re on the Internet and to protect your own reputation and freedom of speech and action.  If you have Malwarebytes version 1.4 with IP protection, realize that you are safer, but at the expense of the credibility, freedom, and opportunity of innocent people.