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spam problems

Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 2:19 pm
by sid6.7
just so you know i've asked pete to just disable posting entirely
as the spam is going through the roof all the sudden today
there were over 60 of them. as a MOD i can only delete but
not prevent spam so its just getting out of hand for you folks
to find any post worth viewing....


i dont know if he'll do it but i hope so..until he comes back that is....

sorry if this ruins thing for anyone...

Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 2:38 pm
by Z!re
He should just add a image verification mod to phpBB, it's quick and easy...

Disabling posting completely is not an option.

Moved to general, this really isnt news, or important, or helpful..

Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 5:26 pm
by Pete
Wow, yeah, the spam is starting to get pretty ridiculous here.

I spent a few hours about a month ago installing anti-spam mods over at the ictv.org forums (which had an even bigger spam problem than these forums).

I ended up finding a solution that almost completely stops spam posts, but also makes it require admin approval for new posters to register (spambots and real people). Not ideal, but at least there's no spam.

Unfortunately, right now I'm on my Macbook Pro at home for Christmas, so I don't have access to my PC with all of my web dev software and the files for Pete's QB Site / QB Express... it will have to wait about a week before I'll be able to do that.

Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 7:18 pm
by moneo
Pete, that solution sounds fine to me.
We can wait --- we're not going anywhere.

Merry Christmas to you.

Regards..... Moneo

Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 1:12 am
by sid6.7
Z!re wrote:He should just add a image verification mod to phpBB, it's quick and easy...

Disabling posting completely is not an option.

Moved to general, this really isnt news, or important, or helpful..

dont move my post zire, its relavent when i asked him to change
something concerning the operation of the board...think about it
whether you find is useful or not is irrelvent....its up to pete not you.

thanks for the reply pete i wouldnt mind approving posts as a MOD
if it keeps the spam down...

Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 10:27 am
by Pete
Well, I think the first priority will be to go through the 2000+ user accounts registered here and delete all the spambots. (I'm sure that makes up more than half of the accounts.)

First thing I'll do is install a mod that makes it easier to delete spam accounts, and some registration mods that will help curb new spambots from registering. If the spam problem persists, I'll make new registrations require admin approval.

ANYWAY, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 10:53 pm
by sid6.7
cool pete i look forward to helping get rid of some of these
goofy spammers...yeah it looks to me like it around 20 to 1
for legit accounts this last couple weeks though we did get quite
a few new guys though that were real...



thanks

Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 1:28 pm
by bungytheworm
How about removing every user account that has 0 posts?
Many spam bots has 0 posts since moderators has removed those. If some real poster looses hes account then he can recreate it in case he wants to post.

Image verification aint actually so good protect, in our site, it wont prevent bots nearly at all for registering.
Maybe admin approval would be better choice right away? Naturally in that case, Pete should give admin rights to some one else too.

Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 7:43 pm
by commanderkeen
Admin approval has worked on all forums I've registered on that use it.

It isn't so good when admins don't bother to log in often though. I once waited 1 month for an account to be approved by an admin. After that, I just gave up.

Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 2:29 am
by Pete
I turned admin approval on this afternoon, actually...after spending 20 mins deleting about 100 spam posts.

In a few days I'm gonna go through and delete all the users with 0 posts and then come up with some kind of a system to make sure that we actually enable legit new user accounts.

Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 10:41 am
by Z!re
Not to ruin all the fun, but what is admin approval supposed to help with?
Sure it'll catch the bots being named www.weightlosspills.com

But what about: Sarah, Michael, CarBob, seaBiscuit$, sid6.7 and so on

If you didnt get it, my point is: How do you identify a bot from the name only.

Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:05 am
by seaBiscuit$
What's all this? I'm NOT a spam bot!

Although you CAN get cheap weight loss pills at http://www.weightlosspillsforcheap.com

and you can get a loan with a low, low apr at http://www.lendingtree.com
Remember, when banks compete over you, you win!

Oh, and Z!re, you may already be a WINNER!
http://www.clickhereziretoclaimyourfreeprizenow.com

Admin approval should be better than nothing, Z!re...

Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:14 pm
by Nodtveidt
The yagl forum has been slammed with spambots over the last couple of months. Despite the fact that the forum is pretty much dead now, I still continue to purge it of bogus crap. Filtering out potentially "bad" usernames is about all I could do outside of account verification. phpbb is REALLY limited in its ability to filter spam at the script level.

Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:22 am
by Pete
It's not that hard to tell a spambot, actually. 99% of them make use of the Website address to promote their website, so that's the best tip-off. Otherwise, real people tend to actually fill out the other profile fields while spambots usually leave them blank.

Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 2:57 am
by Nodtveidt
Manually removing them is easy, yeah, but being able to block them automatically is a much better concept. It's just too bad phpbb isn't set up for that by default. It coudl be modified to do so, though.

Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 7:25 pm
by sid6.7
thanks pete we apprciate anything you do to help smack the
bots... :)

Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 7:30 pm
by sid6.7
Z!re wrote:Not to ruin all the fun, but what is admin approval supposed to help with?
Sure it'll catch the bots being named www.weightlosspills.com

But what about: Sarah, Michael, CarBob, seaBiscuit$, sid6.7 and so on

If you didnt get it, my point is: How do you identify a bot from the name only.

well it should get the "bulk" of them and thats a good start
alot of the names are pertty obvious like "bcxzsedft" or
"_MOUSEX", "p0rnofbritney" "helenXXX" and such esp. those
gibberish ones which there seem to be alot of...

take a look at the page of the newest memebers and
you can pertty much guess 30-40% of which ones are
spam right away...