Opinion – Better to be safe than sorry. Geo-lock the UK from your servers

TL:DR – Opinion – You should consider installing iQ Block Country on WordPress to Geo blocking access to the UK to safeguard you organization from unwanted attention.

The UK is fast becoming a rouge nation with Nuclear Capabilities. While being challenged directly by the President of the United States, Donald Trump and the Trump Administration on the issue of Free Speech the UK Government keeps gaslighting the world while introducing more and more measures to silence any opposition to the Government. The job loss figures are staggering but what is being reported does not seem as bad due to the UK Government creating public sector jobs that are being filled by Labour voters to ensure the Government can not be toppled.

As of this morning Ofcom has issued a take down notice to 4chan. This is now untannable and to ensure we do not fall into this dark trap of media persecution we have decided to block all traffic to the UK infrastructure. If you want to access our content you can do so via a VPN and your IP will be logged. Therefore you agree to our terms and conditions by virtue of not being in the UK. To assist web admins we have created this page for WordPress admins to enable geo blocking.

A good podcast that describe where the UK is heading

One of the options is to install a plugin called iQ Block Country. It is fairly easy to install but you do need file level access to your content directory for the Geo database.

Here are the installation steps:

1. Unzip the archive and put the iq-block-country folder into your plugins folder (/wp-content/plugins/).
2. Create an account at https://www.maxmind.com/en/geolite2/signup
3. Login to your account.
4. Download the GeoIP2 Country database (name is GeoLite2-Country.tar.gz) from your account.
5. Unzip the GeoIP2 database and upload the GeoLite2-Country.mmdb file to your upload dir usually /wp-content/uploads/GeoLite2-Country.mmdb
6. If you do not want to or cannot download the MaxMind GeoIP database you can use the GeoIP API.
7. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
8. Go to the settings page and choose which countries you want to ban. Use the ctrl key to select multiple countries

The only issue here is MaxMind is a subscription service and there are no cheap options available. However, you may want to look at this github repository for an easy answer.

To upload your file, simply use your CPanel file manager and paste the file wp-content/uploads in the root directory. Once done deactivate the plugin and reactivate and you will see this message. The plugin can be configured in Settings –> iQ Block Country.

The configuration is very simple and you can display a message, or redirect to a custom page or a URL. Do not forget to save any customizations before you move to the next page.

You have the option to send any blocked countries to a central list to identify “rouge countries”

To block the UK simply select them from the list.

There is a concept of Front End and Back End to allow signed in users access even from a blocked country. This is a very useful feature. You can exclude users from Pages, Categories, Tags and Post types so there is ample of customization options.

The logging page will have details on the blocked users for your to analyze.

In our specific environment you will be able to see our landing page but nothing else. This is a sad day for free speech and the UK.

This is what our trusted customers will see.

If we use a VPN to access a UK server this is what the users of the rouge nation will see.

curl https://www.mydatasys.com/home/dc-fabric/
Your are not allowed to browse any content on this site due to your 1984 two tier government. Please call a general election to restore full access or use a VPN — https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/727309

curl -I https://www.mydatasys.com/home/dc-fabric/
HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
keep-alive: timeout=5, max=100
content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
pragma: no-cache
expires: Sat, 26 Jul 2012 05:00:00 GMT
x-litespeed-cache-control: no-cache
cache-control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, max-age=0
date: Mon, 18 Aug 2025 01:24:50 GMT
server: LiteSpeed
x-turbo-charged-by: LiteSpeed