Spam...

[Swampy]

As you've noticed, we've been getting a lot of spam posts lately.

While BJ and I are looking into it, there's nothing much we can do about it at this point. We've turned all the anti-spam type stuff on the forums, including people having to type in the letters/numbers from a funky graphic when the register.

The only thing we can do is delete the threads and the users when the show up at this point. Maybe Igor can talk to someone out his direction as they are mostly coming from the Russian areas, 50% of them so far from the Ukraine, not putting any blame on Igor.

All I can ask is that you bear with it and I'll get them deleted as soon as possible.

The next step at this point is that I close open registration down and manually verify users which would take up a bit more of my time. Yeah, I know I'm not working, but I do have a lot of projects going on around the house. :)

[rekhon]

I've seen on other forums a "report this thread" button, that might help a lot, when an user sees spam he can report that as spam to you, maybe some automatic script that will automatically generate a report for you. Also you can promote some users to moderator rights, that can delete those threads right away. There are many choices, but spam is hard to fight. Like someone said, stupidity is better then intelligence, it has no limits!

[Igor]

Hi Bryan, yeah, I'm gonna visit all local spammers and teach them a lesson or two :)
Yes, I'm ashamed for my countrymen, but actually I'm living my "virtual" life on the US Internet for many years now, so don't feel any "link" to the people among whom my physical body lives :crazy: , don't feel any responsibility either.

Ovidiu, there's a red "!" mark in triange on right top of every post which links to such report. Just click it and Bryan or BJ will get informed.

[rekhon]

Oups, didn't saw or understood that button :woot:

[Swampy]

Actually, don't report the spam messages with that button. It will only generate more unnecessary traffic. That button is more for when there's fighting or adult/porn content in the public forums or things like that.

Since I read just about every thread here, usually every day unless on a trip, I'll catch it. There's nothing I can do about it when I'm not reading it, so it's a waste of everyone's time to report it.

I do appreciate the help however. :)

[proberts]

As you've noticed, we've been getting a lot of spam posts lately.


Captcha combined with a valid e-mail to register and banning the email, IP and ID seems to have brought down the spam level on the SMF-based forums I run. I've also made board 1 a spam catcher on one of my forums, as all the autoposting things seem to find that board.

Paul

[Swampy]

Captcha combined with a valid e-mail to register and banning the email, IP and ID seems to have brought down the spam level on the SMF-based forums I run. I've also made board 1 a spam catcher on one of my forums, as all the autoposting things seem to find that board.

Paul

I've been banning the IP's, emails and accounts as they pop up. I've also been watching the ranges of IP's and have even banned whole ranges now. Did some routing and checked, Igor's IP wasn't included, but some of the ranges I banned were originating in Russia.

We'll see what happens now as I've just been starting to ban the IP's for the last week.

They seem to favor posting in the Batteries section here. Don't know why. It's way down on the list and forum id number.

[sandman]

They seem to favor posting in the Batteries section here. Don't know why. It's way down on the list and forum id number.

Maybe you ought to charge them .

Brian

[Swampy]

In case you're interested, I was up way too early and thought I'd look up providers and ip addresses of the spammers of recent.

Here is a list of all the IP's and where these people are coming from in the past few months in case you're interested in this sort of thing. :)

220.146.75.214
country: Japan state: Shizuoka city: Hamamatsu

85.140.93.161
country: Russian Federation state: Moscow City city: Moscow

213.42.21.77
country: United Arab Emirates state: Dubai city: Dubai

82.50.129.198
country: Italy state: Liguria city: Alassio

87.118.103.185
87.118.103.185
87.118.103.185
87.118.103.185
country: Germany state: Thuringen city: Erfurt

64.34.168.235
country: United States state: Texas city: San Antonio

222.243.204.210
country: China state: Hunan city: Yongzhou

200.88.223.98
country: Dominican Republic state: Distrito Nacional city: Santo Domingo

202.202.9.132
country: China state: Sichuan city: Chengdu

212.150.97.114
country: Israel state: Tel Aviv city: Tel Aviv-Yafo

85.140.95.84
country: Russian Federation state: Moscow City city: Moscow

195.225.63.114
country: Satellite Provider Ariave Satcom LTD state: city:

82.55.215.37
country: Italy state: Lazio city: Marcigliana

221.229.250.59
country: China state: Jiangsu city: Xiaozhaozhuang

72.36.229.242
country: United States state: Texas city: Frisco

212.150.97.114
country: Israel state: Tel Aviv city: Tel Aviv-Yafo

85.140.95.122
country: Russian Federation state: Moscow City city: Moscow

85.140.95.13
country: Russian Federation state: Moscow City city: Moscow

69.31.86.58
country: United States state: Deleware city: Bethany Beach

60.217.227.140
country: China state: Beijing city: Beijing

200.25.136.140
country: Ecuador state: Pichincha city: Sangolquí

[Igor]

wooo-hooo!!! no Ukraine (this time ;) ) :getdown: :dunce:

[proberts]

220.146.75.214
85.140.93.161
213.42.21.77
82.50.129.198
87.118.103.185
64.34.168.235
222.243.204.210
200.88.223.98
202.202.9.132
212.150.97.114
85.140.95.84
195.225.63.114
82.55.215.37
221.229.250.59
72.36.229.242
212.150.97.114
85.140.95.122
85.140.95.13
69.31.86.58
60.217.227.140
200.25.136.140


Here's where mine intersect yours on the biggest forum I run:

69.31.86.58 Nurse_sero (unable to log on)
I also got attempts from 69.31.86.60 (didn't check age checkbox)

Paul

[photoworks]

Houston we have a problem!!!
There are spammers in this State :rofl: :rofl:

Billy

[photoworks]

They doesn't seem to stop this and they like the
Batteries & Chargers thread a lot :crazy: Bryan,plug the thread to the mains to get their PC toasted :woot:

Billy

[fujifilmnut]

Bad news:

http://theswampbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19653

Not likely a good bet.

[Face]

I have years that i close my irc servers and the time goes on so maybe i'm not in the time to help you.
But for what i see all these ip seems to be open proxy or bnc servers so Braian ban them without fear, and also for spam generaly are used scripts or boots that work in a oneway ( they have defined the id and the position to put the spam mesage for all forums in our case is the id of bateries) in this case do a check on the members list and clean all suspected members, or replace the user list with a copy before the spam, also if you can ( im not to familiar with forum but i think that is almost the same as irc servers) block the thread Bateries for a little time, i suspect that the spamers are not more than 2-5 persons a little group, till they bored to run the boots on the ip of the forum.
If you can find a proxy scanner, must be free on internet for all types of OS i think, install it.
I think that this things should minimize the spam attack.

I don't know if i helped you but i hoppe.

[AzRich]

After mentioning how stupid it is for people to put ads on boards, we got some on our website. www.prescottcoffeeroasters.com

While it's nice to see an increase in traffic, this gets annoying! Of all the places to put ads for ringtones & viagra... they chose our jasmine tea reviews! I've since hidden the product, but that doesn't stop them. They're still putting them up even though no one can see 'em.

What's weird is, they post about three ads. As soon as I remove them there are three more posted almost immediately.

Maybe I should sell coffee this way? Or at least Jasmine tea!

Any suggestions for us? My brother is looking to put in a requirement for a poster to type in text displayed in a graphic, which seems to be pretty popular in cutting down on these kind of posts. I wouldn't mind doing that here but I can't help thinking - the terrorists win.... Well, that's a stretch, but you guys/gals know what I mean.

[Swampy]

Trying something out to see if it will work. If it does, then we'll have a spam area where most of the spam will go and I'll move the rest of the old battery discussions.

Since most seem to go in that forum, maybe because of it's database number? I don't know. We'll see.

I'd hate to have to manually validate people. Ugh.

[proberts]

Trying something out to see if it will work. If it does, then we'll have a spam area where most of the spam will go and I'll move the rest of the old battery discussions.

Since most seem to go in that forum, maybe because of it's database number? I don't know. We'll see.

I'd hate to have to manually validate people. Ugh.

What number is it? Are you doing captcha now? I haven't had a successful registration since I did the captcha update to SMF, it's been about 6 months now.

Paul

[Swampy]

What number is it? Are you doing captcha now? I haven't had a successful registration since I did the captcha update to SMF, it's been about 6 months now.

Paul

I think it's display number was 11. I moved it to 13 and had nothing for 11 and the next thing you knew, there was spam in the lenses forum where there previously never was any.

Never heard of captcha... And if it has anything to do with linux, it'll be a while before anything can be done cause BJ's a little busy now.

[es136]

i think this is it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha but it is almost unreadable even by humans in some of the forums I've visited, or maybe it has to do with my eye sight. :)

another option is to set up a question for new member registration .
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=124828
i believe this is for version 3 of vBulletin.

eddie

[proberts]

I think it's display number was 11. I moved it to 13 and had nothing for 11 and the next thing you knew, there was spam in the lenses forum where there previously never was any.

Never heard of captcha... And if it has anything to do with linux, it'll be a while before anything can be done cause BJ's a little busy now.

Eddie's got it. SMF gives you the option of a .wav file too, so if you can't read it you can listen to it.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=132482

Looks interesting, as does:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=124828

As does:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=131568

Sounds like vBulletin's captcha isn't as effective as it might be- I *heart* SMF.

Paul

[proberts]

I think it's display number was 11. I moved it to 13 and had nothing for 11 and the next thing you knew, there was spam in the lenses forum where there previously never was any.

Never heard of captcha... And if it has anything to do with linux, it'll be a while before anything can be done cause BJ's a little busy now.

Can you grep the server logs for the posting and see what URL they're using to post? It'd be interesting to see why it's one particular forum (with mine it was always the first board.)

Paul

[proberts]

Well, so far looks like they're all hitting the same board- good deal!

Paul