Location/IP spoofing - a technical challenge

Dylan_G

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I'm trying to buy tickets for an event in the UK from axs.com.

They've got some protection in place to prevent bots/scalping and as a result, I'm not able to access the site from SA.

I've contacted them and they basically told me that it's not possible to access the site from here and to try to get a friend from the UK to buy the tickets for me.

I've spoken to a relative in the UK and they say they can access the site with no problem... So now I'm looking at it as a technical challenge... surely there has to be a way to circumvent the geo-blocking, right?

Looking at the requests made when hitting https://www.axs.com/, I immediately get a 403 Forbidden response. Cloudflare seems to be involved as well (its in the response header as the "Server")

There's also a request made to https://api.axs.com/proxy/v2/users/ipcheck?access_token=XXXX which comes back as 403 Forbidden as well.

So far I've tried:

Different browser/incognito
VPN (Hola) on Chrome
VPN on Android device and use the AXS Android app
EC2 instance in London with VNC.

None of which worked (I get the same error screen)

I'm hoping someone on here with better web/network skills than me will be able to figure out a solution.
 
VPNs like Windscribe and TunnelBear do have limited options with UK locations, and their IP blocks are not all that restricted (or should I rather say, abused). I can access the site using a local dynamic IP. I tested the VPN provided by Opera and it was a no-go.
 
no issues
 

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Well, f*** me.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the one you don't think of... I just hot spotted off my phone's mobile connection and it worked.

Seems like my Afrihost connection is the problem. Maybe the IP range or something, who knows.
 
Well, f*** me.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the one you don't think of... I just hot spotted off my phone's mobile connection and it worked.

Seems like my Afrihost connection is the problem. Maybe the IP range or something, who knows.
that ip range is probably blocked for doing mischief things
 
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