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| Thread ID: 134190 | 2013-06-09 22:05:00 | A flood of spam threads this morning | dugimodo (138) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1345223 | 2013-06-09 22:05:00 | Slightly annoying, I just wondered if it's worth considering altering the registration process to stop this rubbish. On my club forums the admins changed it so registering has to be approved by someone because we started getting a lot of these, more than a year later and I've never seen another spam post. Or maybe use one of those security things where you use the letters shown in a picture to prevent bots registering? Apologies I don't know what measures are currently in place, but this looks a lot like automated accounts and messages to me so it should be preventable. Bad timing with all the uncertainty around the forums too, nobody will stick around if this continues on top of everything else. |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1345224 | 2013-06-09 22:07:00 | +1 It is pretty annoying. |
Nick G (16709) | ||
| 1345225 | 2013-06-09 22:12:00 | Is it a sign of the times :devil | pcuser42 (130) | ||
| 1345226 | 2013-06-09 22:19:00 | That was nothing. You ought to see the amount of spam that I just had to delete that was caught by our automatic spam-O-matic system. Basically, we have spam-O-matic installed which checks all new registrations against a database of known spammers. Any matches and they are denied registration. The next step is spam-O-matic automatically moderates all new members posts where there is a link in the message. This makes those moderated threads only visible to the admin/moderators. This stops 99% of spambots that have escaped the registration filter. The 1% or less of posts that makes it through all that are visible on the forum. I am not sure why the posts that slip through are not picked up by spam-O-matic, because they have links in them too. I would hate to look after this board without spam-O-matic installed, it would an absolute nightmare. The amount of spambots around has increased unbelievably over the last 2 years. |
Jen (38) | ||
| 1345227 | 2013-06-09 22:22:00 | On my club forums the admins changed it so registering has to be approved by someone because we started getting a lot of these, more than a year later and I've never seen another spam post. Or maybe use one of those security things where you use the letters shown in a picture to prevent bots registering?If we pre-approve all registrations then some people would wait up to a day to get their registration approved. No really practical. We actually have a question and answer system in place when registering that is slanted towards NZ'ers knowing the answser - this is supposed to slow down the bots. | Jen (38) | ||
| 1345228 | 2013-06-09 22:25:00 | Hmmm ... just thinking. We may have to change our selection of questions and answers in case the correct answers have now been 'published' for use in the spambot programs. | Jen (38) | ||
| 1345229 | 2013-06-09 22:32:00 | I haven't set up a new forum in years, but had a 99.99% success ratio with the last one. It was really simple to implement, based on a code which was found on the main page, and that had to be input in the registration process. edit: though I suppose if it went on long enough I may have faced the same problem that Jen points out above. |
Greg (193) | ||
| 1345230 | 2013-06-09 23:44:00 | I'm guessing we just need a few captcha type things with NZ slanted questions, Who's the PM, Who's on the $5 bill, Dunedin can be found on which island etc etc | The Error Guy (14052) | ||
| 1345231 | 2013-06-10 01:13:00 | OK, I have re-worded the existing questions, but retained the same answers. And yes, some of the questions are not written in the most 'proper' grammar but there is only so many ways you can re-phrase a question :rolleyes:. I have also removed a couple of too generic questions and added some more NZ flavoured questions. Thanks for the Dunedin one. ;) We now have a total of 15 possible questions. Lets see if that puts the brakes on the spambots for a while. |
Jen (38) | ||
| 1345232 | 2013-06-10 01:28:00 | If we pre-approve all registrations then some people would wait up to a day to get their registration approved. No really practical. We actually have a question and answer system in place when registering that is slanted towards NZ'ers knowing the answser - this is supposed to slow down the bots. Maybe you should moderate their first few posts then.. |
paulw (1826) | ||
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