On Oct. 11, we had our website block some users from accessing it, prompting a few questions from readers. It’s a real pain to have website issues, and they happen more often than we’d like. But the web stuff we deal with might surprise you.

The website error from last weekend read: “Error 1015. You are being rate limited” and in smaller type: “The owner of this website (www.columbian.com) has banned you temporarily from the website.”

The day before, our IT team tightened up our security because so many bots and shady users were trying to access the website. Unfortunately, the errors occurred because our site mistakenly identified readers as bots. We fixed it right away.

The state of the internet is somewhat alarming when it comes to security. As a small, local company with fewer resour

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