Understanding Edge Locations and How My IP Was Blocked by Akamai

Pretty funny but annoying.

What Are Edge Locations?

Edge locations are strategically placed data centers around the globe that serve content to users with minimal latency. They are a critical component of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) like Akamai, Cloudflare, and Amazon's CloudFront. By caching content closer to where you're located, edge locations provide faster load times and a smoother browsing experience.

How My IP Got Blocked by Akamai

My family and I recently began having some access issues with several websites, from American Express, to T-Mobile, to Edmunds (yes, I had to use it for some reason). The error message reads:

You don't have permission to access "http://www.costco.com/" on this server. Reference #18.72622c17.1713900515.67af63f9

After some digging, I discovered that these websites are hosted using Akamai's CDN. My IP address had made too many requests in a short period, causing Akamai to interpret it as suspicious activity and subsequently blacklist it.

What Triggered the Block

A few months ago, I downloaded the Tranco list, a comprehensive list of the million most visited servers worldwide. Out of curiosity, I decided to ping each server to get more information about them. The list doesn't provide website names or descriptions, so I had to look them up. Unfortunately, I ran these pings multiple times from our home IP address. This bulk activity was flagged as bot-like behavior, leading Akamai to block our IP to protect their resources.

Common Issue, Common Solution

Upon searching, I found that many others had a similar block. It's a common response from CDNs to prevent potential abuse or malicious activities. To resolve this, I have to either wait for the block to lift, contact Akamai to whitelist our IP, or get a new IP address. Comcast used to give those out like candy—your modem accidentally disconnected from the internet? bye bye server, here's a new IP for you to try—but not so much anymore.

I Googled around and was told that they hardcode the IP to your modem's MAC address, so you need to clone a different MAC or go into the store and exchange modems to get a new IP. Sorry, but I really hope I don't have to do this. So I spent some time looking in the router's settings for a way to release/renew the WAN IP, but it doesn't work.

That's why I came across this post on Microsoft's forums and read about how clueless members of the general public are to this, as well the fact that it's a fairly common issue. I was also more amused and surprised by the fact that the official Microsoft response didn't even mention the possibility of the IP being blocked by a CDN. And Comcast forums show that their support (apparently—I didn't actually call them) doesn't even know how to release your IP anymore. People lose access to Costco, T-Mobile, Pizza Hut, Chewy.com, etc. Oh, and we even tried to access MLB tickets for the first time in years, and it happened to be blocked as well.

Lessons Learned

While exploring and testing network configurations is fun, to be mindful of the scale and frequency of requests and use different IPs to avoid unintended blocks. CDNs are designed to protect websites from excessive or malicious traffic. For most people, this is probably due to a botnet or something similar.

How I fixed it: we have a router behind this modem. So I just went to the modem's settings and set it to bridge mode. This way, the router is directly connected to the internet, and the modem doesn't have a public IP. It'll probably leave the issue in place if we ever turn the modem back on (turn off bridge mode), unless Comcast updates the modem's public IP on the WAN, which they might do given time.

TL;DR: To fix it, just wait. Akamai will probably fix it themselves given time. Or you can go through hell and back by calling Comcast. Or you can go into the store and exchange your modem to get a new IP. Or you can just wait.

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