IP banning does not work properly?

[Dogger]

Hi

in the IP ban system this interval is set:
188.143.232-233.*

but now a visitor managed to register with IP address:
188.143.232.155

Is there maybe something wrong with the syntax?

Version 1.1.15
Ban setting: Partial ban,
can't post
can't register
can't login

[Ashley S]

These are spam bots which can get past IP Banning.
You can read this it's a Tip and a Trick > http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=418170.0

[Dogger]

but the bot that registered had the IP address 188.143.232.155
and that address is in the ban interval 188.143.232-233.*

How does the bot get past that?

It seems more that there is something wrong with the interval syntax, OR the the SMF ip ban system is not working properly.

[Dogger]

Obviously there is some bug in the smf ip ban system, it's accepting ip addresses that is included in banned ip intervals.

So I installed this mod instead,
Anti-Spam Verification Questions for SMF 1.1.7
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1516
(works in 1.1.15 as well)

[a10]

During the years, I've seen a very few ip's bypassing even .htaccess, my forum ip bans have been perfect, apart from 1 instance of an ip showing up in the ban log without being in the ban list (100% sure, checked all possibilities, incl. database tables). So some glitches do happen, but seems very, very rare.

What I'd do as an experiment is to is delete the ban then make 2 new bans like 188.143.232.* and 188.143.233.* , check that's they're in the db table, and see if it worked this time for some reason.

As for the question mod, it's brilliant.