11 replies to this topic

[AlienSlof]

And please, before slamming this shut and saying 'report it' - I already did - several times. Today in particular, there has been a large number of spambots getting in, some of them posting links to really gross fetish porn. Perhaps a captcha thing could be added to registration to stop them; something that requires a real human's input to finish the registration process.

I mention this, since just lately there has been quite the push to make this place 'kid safe' or 'work safe' (whatever THAT means - workplace is for working, not browsing forums), yet these things turn up posting links to gross adult stuff that anyone could click on.

Something really does need to be done, as it looks bad for the site in general. I know if I had kids, I wouldn't want them stumbling on gross fetish porn.

[buddah]

Doing the best we can, been banning them all day...trying to keep a close eye on things. Everyone is watching.

[bben46]

I've banned a bunch also. My guess is that some spam outfit has cracked a loophole in the antispam defenses. Possibly they are using humans to create a bunch of accounts, then sending in the spam. One of the ones I banned was a Chinese company, but had an Amsterdam IP. I looked at IPs & didn't see any correlation between them. Whebever I see an Amsterdam IP I think of an anonymous proxy site.

[Dark0ne]

There's already CAPTCHA on the registration form. Do you want CAPTCHA on posts too? We can't stop people from making accounts manually then running spambots through them; all we can do is delete the content, ban the accounts and try to IP ban them. Of course, you know this as you were staff up until recently so why the moaning? You know we do our best. Did you want to get a rant about the adult content off your chest?

Slightly disappointed.

Possibly they are using humans to create a bunch of accounts, then sending in the spam.

Yup.

[LadyMilla]

There's already CAPTCHA on the registration form. Do you want CAPTCHA on posts too? We can't stop people from making accounts manually then running spambots through them; all we can do is delete the content, ban the accounts and try to IP ban them. Of course, you know this as you were staff up until recently so why the moaning? You know we do our best. Did you want to get a rant about the adult content off your chest?

Slightly disappointed.

Possibly they are using humans to create a bunch of accounts, then sending in the spam.

Yup.

Spambots can get through CAPTCHA. I operate a small community site, and even though we had CAPTCHA protection on the registration form for our forums, we had one or two spam posts every day until I removed the registration link from the forums, and integrated its authentication system into the front-end portal. Then spam messages suddenly stopped. If they were human, they would have realized that they should now register on the main site to access the forums. Another site I know uses a one-day mute period - whoever registers on that site can download stuff but cannot post messages on their boards for one day. Spambots do not like to check back to see if they can post now so they are virtually spam free, not counting their own trolls.

[Vindekarr]

I play EVE online quite a lot and it's a game that used to have a truly massive spambot problem.

What they did was add a probation period similar to what LadyMilla mentioned-and a report button, I havent seen spam in the last five months there,

I do think LadyMilla's example site's probation idea is sound, give a short period in which they cant post, and some other obstacles, and while you do reduce user friendliness, you do also slash the amount of people who spam.

The other point I would like to make is, WHY?

What is wrong with these idiots that they thought that spamming this website would either be entertaining, or drum up aditional customers for their company? It defies logic.

[CommanderCrazy]

Here's an idea, put a CAPTCHA for making new topics. Mostly because spambots make a new topic for their 'stuff'

Edited by CommanderCrazy, 17 January 2011 - 05:44 AM.

[bben46]

Why? Spammers work on numbers. It costs them very little to send spam. If just .01% answer, that could be hundreds - or even thousands.

As for buying anything from them - they rarely actually sell anything. If you answer - even if to tell them to stop spamming, or to give a piece of your mind, that's what they want - now they know they have a live email - And that is what they are really after - working email addresses to send more spam to and to target with their trojan viruses so they can take over those computers to use for their zombie DDOS attacks.

So, the point is NEVER - I mean NEVER answer a spam email not even to click on the button to remove from list - It doesn't remove you, it adds you to their list of live ones.

This current crop is caused by a spammer paying live people to bypass our capcha to create accounts, then sending just a few - usually 1 to 4 messages knowing we will shut them down quickly.

[AlienSlof]

There's already CAPTCHA on the registration form. Do you want CAPTCHA on posts too? We can't stop people from making accounts manually then running spambots through them; all we can do is delete the content, ban the accounts and try to IP ban them. Of course, you know this as you were staff up until recently so why the moaning? You know we do our best. Did you want to get a rant about the adult content off your chest?

Slightly disappointed.

Not half as disappointed as I am at your snotty reply when I was expressing concern at the really vile stuff the spam was advertising. Nothing to do with the ever-changing rules. And yes, I do remember what a pain it was removing them.

Anyway, if that's how you want to see it, I'll leave you to it. I'm outta here. I'm done with forums. Got better things to do with my time.

[Arthmoor]

I don't know how customized the forum code is, or if Invision already has a plugin for it, but implementing Akismet would almost certainly help in this situation. My blog has been using it since some time in mid-2007 and it has a nearly perfect track record for stopping them from ever being able to post, no matter how hard they've tried. Which is a good thing, because most of the stuff you can actually read is vile and disgusting.

Edited by Arthmoor, 20 January 2011 - 07:05 AM.