Spam report thread

[bitplane]

well, I installed the advanced visualisation mod and it seems to have cut down spam a fair bit, but some are still getting through.
Either a small percentage are using a better OCR, or people are being paid to do it manually. We'll see what happens through the course of the next few weeks, and maybe add even more measures *sigh*

For the future, I was thinking maybe turning guest posts back on, but with the turing test on the posting page, and making it impossible for guests or new users to post links (the mod i looked at for this has people complaining about stability, so it's worth waiting a while first)

[afecelis]

Those sure are great news Bitplane! It sure seems to have reduced spam. The spam-user cleaning process was a pleasure today, ehehehehe.

Not sure about guest posting back on; I think it's ok as long as they have to enter a code prior to posting.

thanks for modding the forums

[jam]

thanks for modding the forums

I would like to second that.

[3ddev]

Finally a fix which seems to have worked. It was awful with all thoses *!* spammers about. Great job Bitplane. If you turn the Guest postings on again, make sure they have to type in a code. For New Users, I would recommend sending a confirmation notice to their e-mail. This creates such a hassle for all would-be spammers that they are mostly deterred. Also, I wouldn't mind having to type in a code every time a log-in. This would finally get rid of all the "robot spammers." I have seen these things already implimented on other phpBB forums, and it seems to really work!

[bitplane]

please don't reply to them, it only means we have to go through and delete replies too.
unfortunatley sourceforge have sendmail turned off, so we can't use email activation.
There's another mod to block new users from posting links or using signatures or having a website until they have 10 posts, to remove users with no posts from the user list, and also to subtly rename fields and ban any user that posts anything back to a field that doesn't exist on the page. I'll look at this .. erm .. no promises when, but the spam situation next gets really really annoying.

[Xaron]

well, I installed the advanced visualisation mod and it seems to have cut down spam a fair bit, but some are still getting through.

Have you tried to alter the settings? Im mean, add some lines and circles and some different fonts and shadows...

Regards - Xaron

[bitplane]

yeah i've tried all the settings. I think the problem is they just try and try again until they get it right, and without some kind of ban control they get through eventually.
The main problem is that the task is one that's doable through software, forum spamming software will only get better through time.
What we really need is a task that's not easily done in software, for example questions like "name the picture" with multiple choice questions and automatic bans for the wrong answer. there's free software to decide between a bunch of letters, but if shown an image and asked something like "how many triangles do you see?", "how many squares are touching an edge?" or "how many hexagons are partly covered by a circle?", with today's technology only humans could guess the answer

[Katsankat]

No doubt there is a human somewhere.
Why not go directly to the origin. Honestly who is interested in pissing off anything related to Open-Source?
Proof of concept: I create a new mail box, join a single mailing-list that has something to do with Open-Source and BAM less than a week after I start being proposed for viagra, sex stuff, lotto, and many more. I get like 50 a day like this.
We should invade something as preventive counter-measures because everything has limits, particulary respect and patience.

[jeffm2501]

we had similar spam problems on our phpbb, we added a simple field to the registration page that simply asks them to enter the name of our game, It has cut down our spam from 5-10 a day, to 1 or 2 a month.

[omar shaaban]

well did u put these numbers so if any one registered he must write the numbers in the picture so bots cant' write them so cant register!

[BlindSide]

Wow thats probably smarter than the image thing because bots are designed to surpass it. But I doubt any of them can actually process information on the website and put it in the right fields!

[jeffm2501]

we kept the image verification thing too, but just added a field that asked them to answer the question "what is the name of the game". you could do 'what is the name of the engine"

I can get you the mods we did if you'd like. they were very simple.

[Virion]

I got an idea on how to prevent spam bot from registering in the forum.
Add in "Security Code Confirmation" into the registration form.

[gunnicom]

How many new Users are there per Day?
Maybe, if there are not that much new Users, it is possible to just let the first Post be controlled by a Mod, and after that it can be decided if it is a regular user or a spambot.

[cylicht]

The captcha is getting ridiculously difficult. It took me probably 5 tries to register, and we're still getting a lot of spam.

Check out the Panda3D forum registration.
http://panda3d.org/phpbb2/profile.php?m ... greed=true

It has a grid of pictures of cars and pandas, and says "Put a check mark next to all photographs of animals. (This is a spam prevention mechanism)."

I have not seen a single spam since they put that in. Could something similar be done here? Maybe something like a bunch of Irrlicht screenshots with the instructions "put a check mark next to all pictures of fairies" ?

I think they had all registered members tested once after putting that in, just to prove they were human.