Massive spam attacks on the forum lately!

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zboy1
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Massive spam attacks on the forum lately!

Post by zboy1 »

Winston, the Indian spammers are at it again! You said that you recently removed the block of IPs coming from India; well, that is causing this forum to be inundated with Indian spammers and false posts.

Why are there so many spammers from India, and why do they like coming on this forum so much!?

Maybe you could institute some kind of captcha system, so that spammers can't just freely post their garbage here on this forum?


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Winston
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Post by Winston »

We do have a captcha system. But human spammers can get past it easily.

How many are coming now? I only saw a few.
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zboy1
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Post by zboy1 »

Winston wrote:We do have a captcha system. But human spammers can get past it easily.

How many are coming now? I only saw a few.
Multiple people daily. You only see a few because I've deleted most of them before you log on...
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Winston
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Post by Winston »

Should we block the Indian spammers again? If so, we end up blocking some in the US too for some reason.
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Winston
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Post by Winston »

Well I've stopped the recent spam attacks by disabling user activation. But the problem is that any new genuine users will also not be able to activate their account. Also, everyday HUNDREDS of spam accounts are being created on this forum, even though they are not being activated. So I have to prune the memberlist by deleting new members with zero posts everyday. It's crazy.

What can we do? At this point, newly registered users will not be able to post. But if I re-enable user activation, then hundreds of spam posters will be posting.

What's the solution? There is no option in the admin panel to put new users on moderated status, not in this phpbb version.

I'll either have to try changing the humanizer question, or block all the spammers from India again by putting all the IP's from that country into the htaccess file.

Any suggestions?
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Johnny1975
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Post by Johnny1975 »

Don't allow new members to post for a week
Make it so that the first x number of posts have to be approved
Give new members a limit on how many posts they can write per day
Make all new threads subject to approval, up to a point

Basically just slow them down and make it unappealing for them to spam.
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HouseMD
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Post by HouseMD »

You could force captchas for posts.

And do you have both a captcha and a humanizer question? You could add multiple humanizer questions, have them be random.

For now I would just ban the India IPs though- some new members are better than no new members.

I just don't get spammers. Does anyone ever actually use their links? It's insane that it is profitable enough for them to ruin entire sections of the Internet on a regular basis.
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Winston
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Post by Winston »

I already said that we have captcha's and humanizer questions. The problem is we can't put new users on moderated status. I'd have to try to install a mod for that.

For now, I'll have to try to change the humanizer question and ban the India IP's again. Otherwise, we will be bombarded by hundreds of spam accounts registering everyday, which I have to prune out everyday.
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HouseMD
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Post by HouseMD »

Winston wrote:I already said that we have captcha's and humanizer questions. The problem is we can't put new users on moderated status. I'd have to try to install a mod for that.

For now, I'll have to try to change the humanizer question and ban the India IP's again. Otherwise, we will be bombarded by hundreds of spam accounts registering everyday, which I have to prune out everyday.
Can you implement captchas for posts though? Like to fill out in order for the submit button to process? 4chan uses that system and it works very well at keeping spam at bay.
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Winston
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Post by Winston »

No I can't. There is no feature like that here. But even if there were, that's not a good idea, unless it only applies to new posters, or else regular forum posters would be annoyed at having to type captchas on every post. Besides, spam bots can figure out captchas easily now.
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Cornfed
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Post by Cornfed »

One strategy used on another forum is to require new members to e-mail the administrator and say why they want to be a member.
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Winston
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Post by Winston »

Cornfed wrote:One strategy used on another forum is to require new members to e-mail the administrator and say why they want to be a member.
That would add a lot of extra work load for me. I don't check my email everyday. Besides, anyone can give a reason to join a forum. Talk is cheap.
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Winston
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Post by Winston »

Ok I changed the humanizer question from "What is the capitol of Texas?" to "Which country did Hitler invade first at the onset of WWII?"

We'll see if that stops the spam registrations. If not, I'll have to ban India in the htaccess file again.
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

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Cornfed
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Post by Cornfed »

Winston wrote:
Cornfed wrote:One strategy used on another forum is to require new members to e-mail the administrator and say why they want to be a member.
That would add a lot of extra work load for me. I don't check my email everyday. Besides, anyone can give a reason to join a forum. Talk is cheap.
The thing is that they would have to write an individualized e-mail response for every account. This takes a lot of time. Obviously you would learn to recognize generic responses. This would make most spamming non-viable from a time perspective. You could deflect some of to the e-mails to mods. But if you are to continue to make your living from the Internet, it might actually be necessary to check your e-mail on more than a daily basis.
OutWest
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Post by OutWest »

Winston wrote:We do have a captcha system. But human spammers can get past it easily.

How many are coming now? I only saw a few.


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