Spam.

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Vadi
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:13 pm

Re: Spam.

Post by Vadi »

Changed the captcha and am in the process of deleting 10 pages of spambots... our forums are updated to latest; migration isn't in the picture until there is definitive proof that will 100% solve everything and that we can't do here. Changing forum software is fairly disruptive on users.

icesteruk
Posts: 287
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2013 9:16 pm

Re: Spam.

Post by icesteruk »

Can you not just set it to Admin validation for new users til its sorted out? or email validation by the user?

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Vadi
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:13 pm

Re: Spam.

Post by Vadi »

Admin validation for new users would mean that any new user who wants to post on our forums for an immediate problem they're facing will not be able to do so - frustrating them and defeating the point of forums.

Email validation by user is already in place. Interestingly enough, alot of these accounts use gmail.com. Must be a lot of hacked gmail accounts out there (most likely by re-using passwords from other places, not by actually breaking into gmail).

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Vadi
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:13 pm

Re: Spam.

Post by Vadi »

Email validation wasn't actually in place - I've enabled it now. Yay inconveniences :(

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Vadi
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:13 pm

Re: Spam.

Post by Vadi »

I've cleaned up 10 pages of spam posts this morning, switched captcha back to reCaptcha, and enabled email validation. Looking at our registered users though, a lot of them seem like bots - so knowing whenever the measures take effect is to be measured by the new users that register, not posts that float up.

I've started deleting the obvious ones (going by their username and email), if any admins want to help out with this, join in. Hopefully we won't get any legitimate ones :|

hogarius
Posts: 35
Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2011 8:35 pm

Re: Spam.

Post by hogarius »

We appreciate your efforts, Vadi.

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Vadi
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:13 pm

Re: Spam.

Post by Vadi »

I don't think the reCaptcha measures were working, so I switched back to a question. I hope the question won't cause many inconveniences.

I've also found a way to delete the bots en-masse, so I've gotten rid of about 300 of them who were "sleeper" bots who haven't posted yet.

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Akaya
Posts: 414
Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2012 1:36 am

Re: Spam.

Post by Akaya »

Heiko wrote:Thank you. New users need 3 approved postings before they are allowed to post freely. We have a problem with spam bots.
Found this while searching around. Was it effective?

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Vadi
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:13 pm

Re: Spam.

Post by Vadi »

I didn't instate that policy. Just one approved post among other measures, but I'm really inlined to ake away approved postings ASAP. Already we've had a double post - I imagine the person got confused about not seeing their post actually appear.

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Vadi
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:13 pm

Re: Spam.

Post by Vadi »

... hm ...

It's been quiet on this front. This is good.

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