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SPAMMER ATTACK!


Carlspeak

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I've written to Mark about this suggesting he assign one or two trusted folks who visit here on a frequent basis to be moderators who can immediately delete the likes of what we've seen here today.

Carl

Hi Carl

Good Idea, I also notified Mark immediately when I saw it.

I'll be happy to take part in the "spam control" squad.

BRgds Klaus

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Hi Carl

Good Idea, I also notified Mark immediately when I saw it.

I'll be happy to take part in the "spam control" squad.

BRgds Klaus

These fucking spammers are particularly annoying today... the forum is getting hit with a mixture of failed registrations (bogus email addresses) and successful registrations (email accounts simply used for spamming forums.) I'm going to turn off automatic registrations now and may look into having someone who visits more often than I take care of approving new members.

Mark

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These fucking spammers are particularly annoying today... the forum is getting hit with a mixture of failed registrations (bogus email addresses) and successful registrations (email accounts simply used for spamming forums.) I'm going to turn off automatic registrations now and may look into having someone who visits more often than I take care of approving new members.

They're still coming in. All the spam sending profiles appear to be new members today. Maybe you need to do some sort of scorched-earth manuever and delete every new member signed up on Oct 1?

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These fucking spammers are particularly annoying today... the forum is getting hit with a mixture of failed registrations (bogus email addresses) and successful registrations (email accounts simply used for spamming forums.) I'm going to turn off automatic registrations now and may look into having someone who visits more often than I take care of approving new members.

Mark

Some chat sites I've registered at use a speacial window with a non-standard text font you must read and type into that window in order to eliminate auto-spamming. Others send an email to the address you registered under which you must return to confirm your email address is real.

Does CSP use these tools?

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These fucking spammers are particularly annoying today... the forum is getting hit with a mixture of failed registrations (bogus email addresses) and successful registrations (email accounts simply used for spamming forums.) I'm going to turn off automatic registrations now and may look into having someone who visits more often than I take care of approving new members.

Mark

I noticed that a few days before the pr0n-spam avalanche began, there was a post seemingly out of place (I think it was in the "For sale / Wanted" Forum), which took the form of the first part of a typical "XRumer" probe/attack (the post actually mentioned XRumer).

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xrumer

This link show XRumer in action (know thine enemy): http://www.botmaster.net/movies/XFull.swf

Perhaps some elaborate form of "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart." (CAPTCHA) will help?

Unfortunately even fairly sophisticated CAPTCHA implementations have been successfully bypassed. :)

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA

The following link discusses the software mentioned above: http://www.governmentsecurity.org/forum/?showtopic=26880

Spammers, bloody time-wasters, curse the lot of them!

Robert_S

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I noticed that a few days before the pr0n-spam avalanche began, there was a post seemingly out of place (I think it was in the "For sale / Wanted" Forum)

And not surprisingly, this is where the new posts continue to appear even though the rest of the site seems to have quieted down. Maybe that forum needs to be locked down for new topics for a while.

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... the forum is getting hit with a mixture of failed registrations (bogus email addresses) and successful registrations (email accounts simply used for spamming forums.)

Mark

Hello Mark,

On the IPS Community website, there is a forum topic [bots / Scripts Can Register on 2.3.5] that mentions the very same issue that we are experiencing here.

See: http://forums.invisionpower.com/index.php?showtopic=277487

The first post in the topic above mentions that the problems began following registration and a post by a user (bot?) named "JellyDreamas". The content of the post referenced therein is the same as the 'odd' post that we had here (as is the name of the member):

"Wher search-link on your site!, mfk

Well... good site... Wher search-link on your site.Can you help me?P.S. Anybody know about [content withheld] 5.0 program? Need a link to it..."

As I am not yet fully registered, and don't have an "active support contract" with the Invasion Power Services IP.Board, I can't access all the forum topics, but it may be that the solution has already been found; certainly worth a look.

See also: http://forums.invisionpower.com/index.php?showtopic=277539

Hope that helps.

Robert_S

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Some chat sites I've registered at use a speacial window with a non-standard text font you must read and type into that window in order to eliminate auto-spamming. Others send an email to the address you registered under which you must return to confirm your email address is real.

Does CSP use these tools?

We have been using both - the problem is these spammers are sitting in a cyber cafe somewhere actually creating webmail accounts and typing in the requested input. New users now must be validated (I have two full pages of spammers in there in the last day) and I added an extra requested input for each message a user attempts to post.

Mark

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We have been using both - the problem is these spammers are sitting in a cyber cafe somewhere actually creating webmail accounts and typing in the requested input. New users now must be validated (I have two full pages of spammers in there in the last day) and I added an extra requested input for each message a user attempts to post.

Mark

Got fingers crossed that it works. Maybe we need a validation system that asks random gateway questions that a spammer will have to take time to find and supply the correct answer to, like "What size is the woofer on a KLH 6?" or "Name one of the founders of Acoustic Research." :)

So should we report the spam posts we see still littering the forums, or are you already hunting them down and deleting them?

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Hello Mark,

On the IPS Community website, there is a forum topic [bots / Scripts Can Register on 2.3.5] that mentions the very same issue that we are experiencing here.

See: http://forums.invisionpower.com/index.php?showtopic=277487

The first post in the topic above mentions that the problems began following registration and a post by a user (bot?) named "JellyDreamas". The content of the post referenced therein is the same as the 'odd' post that we had here (as is the name of the member):

As I am not yet fully registered, and don't have an "active support contract" with the Invasion Power Services IP.Board, I can't access all the forum topics, but it may be that the solution has already been found; certainly worth a look.

See also: http://forums.invisionpower.com/index.php?showtopic=277539

Hope that helps.

Robert_S

I'm trying to upgrade to the latest version with the improved CAPTCHA today. The time I have to spend on this website has been decreasing over time so I'll think about the suggestion to appoint a couple moderators. I think it could help not only in terms of validating new members, but also improving the quality of posts - e.g. moving off-topics to the correct area.

And guys - I don't need to know about every individual spam post, but thank you for the effort. ;)

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I'm trying to upgrade to the latest version with the improved CAPTCHA today. The time I have to spend on this website has been decreasing over time so I'll think about the suggestion to appoint a couple moderators. I think it could help not only in terms of validating new members, but also improving the quality of posts - e.g. moving off-topics to the correct area.

A suggestion based on experiences with other boards: multiple moderators validating members and cleaning out spam posts is fine, and you could have one moderator handling multiple forums, but each forum should only have one moderator making decisions about on/off topic posts and whether members who get into a dispute are being abusive, with the moderator decision subject to review and overruling by you if necessary. The spectacle of multiple moderators on a single forum getting into disagreements with each other over some forum issue can be very undignified for the site.

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I'm trying to upgrade to the latest version with the improved CAPTCHA today. The time I have to spend on this website has been decreasing over time so I'll think about the suggestion to appoint a couple moderators. I think it could help not only in terms of validating new members, but also improving the quality of posts - e.g. moving off-topics to the correct area.

And guys - I don't need to know about every individual spam post, but thank you for the effort. ;)

I've upgraded to the latest version of IP.Board - let's hope the spammers go find some other forum to play with.

Mark

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I've upgraded to the latest version of IP.Board - let's hope the spammers go find some other forum to play with.

Mark

Excellent work Mark, reCAPTCHA looks very robust.

On behalf of the music-loving/audio-obsessed human beings that frequent this board: "thanks for your valuable time!" ;)

Robert_S

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