Spambots

Laundry · Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:12 am Post subject:

No, it's 20 to trick, and that's the only post obligation that there is.

Spike · Administrator Joined: 17 Jan 2002 Location: Denver

Laundry · Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:25 am Post subject:

Ahh, was there a change ever?

Edible Bondage Tape · Trick Member Joined: 26 Jan 2002 Location: Kerri

Laundry · Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:45 pm Post subject:

Probably because she asked. I'm sure they'll do it for a person they know isn't a total noob, and knows how most forums work.

Shy · Trick Member Joined: 01 May 2002

Well I went thru and did some research on the subject.

Catpcha has finally been decrypted. The Spambots are now able to tell what the letters are and can get around it.

So one good way to get around this is don't name your registration page "register.php" or something similarly easy to guess. Don't give your username and password fields name and id attributes of "username" and "password". Etc, etc. There is no security in obscurity, but there sure as hell is lots of convenience and freedom from automated harassment.

The rewards for writing scripts that can handle the subscription process for all the big software packages are simply too large. Yes, these software packages will now start up the arms race, same as has happened with weblogs and email and referer spammers. You can try and follow along and update your forum software every other day. But it's much more convenient to simply duck under the radar. Chances are no spammer is going to bother figuring out how to register at your custom-built/modified forum.

Theres also KittenAuth, google it, seems pretty interesting, but sadly still in the Beta stages of being completely designed.

Also, if you guys haven't done it you need to ban registration from those fake email sites. Things like @mail.ru and @___.info are ones that are commonly used for forum bots.

Also, there are a number of options you have, depending on how aggressive you want to be. You may have implemented some of these suggestions already, but they may help other forum admins in a similar quandry.

Firstly, disable anonymous posting. What works for slashdot does not necessarily work for phpbb. This may sound obvious, but a forum I check on now and again is slowly haemorrhaging members due to guest bot spam.

Secondly, find yourself a list of public proxy servers. Ban them. Find some more. Ban them too. Also, take note of the IPs the spambots were using to post. Ban them as well (unless they are AOL IPs -- be smart and do an nslookup). Keep this list of banned IPs, and are them with the blacklist groups, or other forum admins you know. You help them, they help you.

Thirdly, augment your signup process. You say you are using CAPTCHAs, but if the bots are getting arond or through them, you have to do more. Write a few hundred straightforward questions; you can get your community to help you for this one. Have one o two of those questions displayed at regitration time, along with the CAPTCHA. For example:

Which of this is not one of the seven dwarves?

* Doc
* Sleepy
* Bashful
* Horsey

Or would you like another question ?

Keep this as simple as possible. "What color is the sky?" is about the level you are looking for. A bot won't be able to answer these unless it is specifically programmed to.

For bonus points on this one, make the questions something to do with the topic of the forums. If the forums were about widgets, you could ask something (really basic) like "What is the most common color of widget?". Or make come of the questions about the TOS. You know, the thing everyone checks the box saying "I agree to abide by the TOS". This may alienate some people, though, which you may or may not want. Also remember to consider non-native English speakers.

These are just alot of ideas I myself had and a few solutions I found online.
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Bringer of Death · Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 11:55 pm Post subject:

Shy · Trick Member Joined: 01 May 2002

.a · Trick Member Joined: 16 Jun 2002

Let's make responding to a spam post a warnable offense. The last thing we want is to have someone make a "BUY PORN HERE" post and then it keep getting bumped to the top.

P-Chan · Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 12:53 pm Post subject:

technically, it is... as it is a blatant violation to our rules and anyone with a miligram of common sense knows nothing should be answered to it

counts as postwhoring/pointless posting on my book
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Edible Bondage Tape · Trick Member Joined: 26 Jan 2002 Location: Kerri

simple answer

turn the goddamn captcha on
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VxJasonxV · Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 12:50 am Post subject:

Captcha's don't solve the problem.

[note]
They help, but barely.
There are already public tools to beat damn near any captcha.
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Amusing Pictures: lolddrfreak | Road of LoQ

Edible Bondage Tape · Trick Member Joined: 26 Jan 2002 Location: Kerri

VxJasonxV · Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 2:38 am Post subject:

Give us a 100% fool proof anti-spam solution with no false positives.

Then we'll talk

.
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Amusing Pictures: lolddrfreak | Road of LoQ

Radix · Trick Member Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Location: çå£«

.a · Trick Member Joined: 16 Jun 2002

I don't see that the number of spambots are anywhere near the number of down syndrome posters on this site. And at least the spambots are getting banned.

Why even worry about it? The problem is hardly devistating. Barely even annoying, really.

Laundry · Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 6:34 pm Post subject:

Sure, some spambots aren't annoying, but (IMO), I find a lot of them annoying. Especially the "BUY GENERIC VIAGRA PILLS AND GET A DISCOUNT ON A PENIS PUMP" ones.

Radix · Trick Member Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Location: çå£«

I like that 4D GAMES CONSPIRACY guy, he's awesome.

Laundry · Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 5:39 am Post subject:

Yeah, that was what I was referring to.

VxJasonxV · Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 5:50 am Post subject: