go away spammer

Author Topic: Spamers...  (Read 5522 times)

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Offline JesseWellingTopic starter

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Spamers...
« on: December 10, 2006, 11:23:10 AM »
...should die! >:(

Maybe we could implement some kind of administrative check to allow people into the forums.
Like in thier application they have to write out why they would like the forums.
3 sentences min about what they hope to learn here or stuff like that.

Then we just have to check them within a week and either activate them or disregard...
and it helps us identify how best to help new people and what thier skill level is.

Offline JonHylands

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Re: Spamers...
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2006, 11:36:17 AM »
Most forum software packages include a "moderate first post" function, which allows the moderator to decide, based on whether the first post is on-topic, to allow it, or to ban the person in question.

I already asked Admin, and apparently this software doesn't have that feature...

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Offline Admin

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Re: Spamers...
« Reply #2 on: December 10, 2006, 01:41:06 PM »
last night i had the same dream five times . . . each time the forum got spammed like 40 times in one day by really clever bots . . . lol, i knew it was a dream, but it kept repeating all night . . .

i went through the member list of people that hadnt posted yet, and found like 20 spammer emails. deleted em all . . .

a first post moderation would be nice, but this forum just doesnt have it . . .

ill look into the forum code and see if i can do some kind of hack . . .

to be honest, i only see this spam problem getting worse. my personal account is now getting 270 spam/day  :-\

Offline Admin

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Re: Spamers...
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2006, 12:10:06 PM »
recently, one out of ever 4 new members that join are actually spam bots . . .

i now backcheck each member that joins, and ban the email addresses that are obviously spammers . . .

seems to be working . . . for now . . .

these is a blacklist mod for this forum available, but it doesnt work for the newest version . . .

Offline Admin

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Re: Spamers...
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2007, 08:09:48 PM »
I am proud to say there have been no spammers in 3 months! (knock on wood)

The email blanning method has worked :)

Offline hgordon

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Re: Spamers...
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2007, 09:19:36 PM »
Glad to hear you found a solution.  It got so bad on our user forum that registration can only be done by the Admin, and new members have to request registration via email, including an explanation of their reason for joining.
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Offline Admin

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Re: Spamers...
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2007, 09:44:49 PM »
if you get spam from say [email protected], just ban all emails from *@spammer.net

if you force email validation, this will stop the spammer in his tracks because he has to give a valid email address.

it turned out there were only 8 or spam email addresses actually spamming this forum, and after i blocked them all, life became easy =)

oh and the pick out the letters from a scrambled image filter doesnt really work, because the spammer can just do that manually . . .

Offline hgordon

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Re: Spamers...
« Reply #7 on: March 08, 2007, 09:45:33 AM »
I tried that as well as blocking IP's, but the Britney Spears and Paris Hilton photo links still got through.  Our site isn't set up for email validation, so that probably would have made a big difference.  We had 10-20 new spammers a day until I shut it down with manual registration, but I'm glad you had better luck.
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Offline Sam_Charette

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Re: Spamers...
« Reply #8 on: March 08, 2007, 11:14:40 AM »
I had quite the issue with spammers for a while myself, though on a phpbb board.  Finally I implemented a mod that made it so that posts and private messages that contain links are rejected if the account posting has less than 4 posts already.  Since then, there has been no more spam.  (sure, there are spam accounts created, but they don't go anywhere, and aren't seen by anyone but admin staff.
The LED Massacre continues.  Death count is now 5

 


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