Bogus posts by new members

[big F]

Im not sure if this is the right place to ask about htis but is there anyway we can rid our selves of the recent influx of porn or Viagra related posts made by bogus new members. I know that the staff here are very good at deleting them but Im probably not alone in thinking this, my MW post notifications go to my hotmail account which is on my mobile phone so I get message downloads for junk which takes my time and wastes my money Connection carges). Now I dont want to direct my MW posts to another mail address but it would be great if they were pure Macross goodness and not Porn and such.

I know that other forums are also under attack but is it posible to have a reply message system for new members so that they have to varify themselves before they get full access. This would maybe stop the forum bots.

[Roy Focker]

The Mods have talked about this. It is believed that with the increase anti-spam mail service and pop up blockers that the spammers have moved their efforts to message boards. It appears to be a wide spread problem. Some message boards are flooded with them.

[azrael]

You can disable Email notifications for the board so that you don't get them, reducing the times you need to check your phone.

[Hurin]

The ultimate solution seems to be IPB v2.2. Since Macross Nexus upgraded to IPB v2.2, we've had no penetration by the same bots that harass us over here. Whereas we used to get tagged by them a few times per day. However, there are some low-level upgrades needed on the MW server that only Shawn can do before we can move to IPB v2.2. So, MW won't be moving to IPB v2.2 immediately.

Having said that, for the vast majority of users, the posts are discovered and removed before they're even aware of them. Your situation appears less common since you're getting emailed notification of every new post ().

To my knowledge (and I've looked before), there's no way of limiting new members' posting privileges. After all, if we make it so they can't post until they reach a certain number of posts, how will they ever reach that number? Basing it on time (two weeks before being allowed to post) is not supported by the board software and even if it were, I'm not sure it would be effective and might actually have the unintended consequence of discouraging new members (people who register to post want to post now, not two weeks from now).

The best layer of defense is at registration. Unfortunately, the current system where an email address must be validated has been adapted to by the spambots and is no longer very effective. This thread has me thinking about a solution I could try. But I probably shouldn't say more until I look into a bit more.

Now, having said all that, if you want to see a forum that is truly inundated, try this memory maker's forums. Not only are they new threads, but nearly every thread also has a spammed response. Link.

[Ishimaru]

The ultimate solution seems to be IPB v2.2. Since Macross Nexus upgraded to IPB v2.2, we've had no penetration by the same bots that harass us over here. Whereas we used to get tagged by them a few times per day. However, there are some low-level upgrades needed on the MW server that only Shawn can do before we can move to IPB v2.2. So, MW won't be moving to IPB v2.2 immediately.

Having said that, for the vast majority of users, the posts are discovered and removed before they're even aware of them. Your situation appears less common since you're getting emailed notification of every new post ().

To my knowledge (and I've looked before), there's no way of limiting new members' posting privileges. After all, if we make it so they can't post until they reach a certain number of posts, how will they ever reach that number? Basing it on time (two weeks before being allowed to post) is not supported by the board software and even if it were, I'm not sure it would be effective and might actually have the unintended consequence of discouraging new members (people who register to post want to post now, not two weeks from now).

The best layer of defense is at registration. Unfortunately, the current system where an email address must be validated has been adapted to by the spambots and is no longer very effective. This thread has me thinking about a solution I could try. But I probably shouldn't say more until I look into a bit more.

Now, having said all that, if you want to see a forum that is truly inundated, try this memory maker's forums. Not only are they new threads, but nearly every thread also has a spammed response. Link.

You can try having the pictures in which the person must type in the numbers/letters they see to confirm registration.

Or is this with v2.2?

Just a suggestion since it does help out alot.

[David Hingtgen]

Trust me, we spend a lot of time hunting down spammers. I check the new member registrations almost every night to try to get them before they post. But I can't delete every member I "suspect" is just a new spammer, because there's too much risk of deleting an actual Macross fan that just joined. (Though IMHO, I've never been wrong---every one I was suspicious of but "let go" ended up spamming I think)

[pfunk]

kill em all and let god sort em out,,,,BTW thiers this new site, gaystraightlesbiansinglesinyourarea.com you really need to check out

JK, i do like the idea of having to reply to a certain topic before you can post on the boards idea

[azrael]

You can try having the pictures in which the person must type in the numbers/letters they see to confirm registration.

Or is this with v2.2?

*tap* Points at registration form */tap*

It's already there. The problem is that spammers have already cracked many of these security code schemes. IPB 2.2 uses a new one yet sooner or later, that one will be cracked as well.

And like David, I spend virtually every morning hunting down accounts and any rogue posts. In fact, I come to the boards without reading any new posts and go straight to the member lists to find spammers. I'm probably responsible for banning most of the ISPs in our filters.

[Lightning]

Trust me, we spend a lot of time hunting down spammers. I check the new member registrations almost every night to try to get them before they post. But I can't delete every member I "suspect" is just a new spammer, because there's too much risk of deleting an actual Macross fan that just joined. (Though IMHO, I've never been wrong---every one I was suspicious of but "let go" ended up spamming I think)

I do the same thing over at the drift411.com forums, and I have some of the same problems as well. Plus, people keep trying to sell cell phones over there.

[HWR MKII]

This is getting out of hand. A new idiot already popped up in the models section in someone elses thread. This says warm meat behind a keyboard. If it were a bot it would have just started new thread all together.

[Dante74]

Who's Vash? Have we been hacked?

Did EXO break the internet?

[UN Spacy]

Hurry up mods and ban this prick.

[JsARCLIGHT]

I'm on it.

This ass got off 17 hits. Seven frakking teen.

Any word on that board upgrade Hurin? Shawn?

Edit: I think I've managed to track down and nix all 17 of that spambot's posts. It was not only posting new threads of it's own but was shot-gunning posts into existing threads all over the board. If anyone sees a post by the spambot "Vash" that I may have missed please PM me with it's location.

[Mr March]

Martha Stewart and porn is not something that any human being should be subjected to

[Sdf-1]

Martha Stewart and porn is not something that any human being should be subjected to

Not even a bot.

[David Hingtgen]

Most people aren't even aware of "Neela" who posted a good 12 hours before--I was actually on the forums while they struck, and their posts only lasted a few minutes. Still managed to get off 4 posts though. We actually get more spam than is often seen, but half the time there's a mod right there, so we can get to it before more than 0.1% of the members notice there's a spammer.

[zeo-mare]

this loser has been spamming the Hobbyfanatics board as well.

[Hurin]

Any word on that board upgrade Hurin? Shawn?

While I don't normally like to pass the buck, I only have FTP access to the web area of the server and admin access to IPB. I don't have low-level access to the server itself. So, it's totally out of my hands. We need newer versions of PHP and MySQL before we can upgrade to the newest version of IPB. Those are things I can't accomplish with my current level of access.

[Wes]

For those asking for an upgrade: The last time we got hacked it took awhile to contact Shawn, much less make the upgrade. And he's the only one I believe who has that authority.

If bots spamming is a problem, I'd say, if possible, make it to where new members could only post once every 12 hrs for a week or so. This board isn't that fast-pased, so it shouldn't be a huge inconvience. That whay the bots couldn't hammer us.

But good job mods. I look up MW at various hours and have yet to see spam here.

[Ishimaru]

I know I may have posted something like this earlier but it could help ease the problem.

Got another idea, how about a random image is displayed, it shows like for example bars of different colors, the server would request how many are blue before you can submit. It would take a lot of coding to get a bot recognize it, as there would be more randomly generated stuff.

I'm just trying to suggest a few things, but I hope it helps out in some way.

But good job maintaining the spam on these boards , I didn't even know we had a problem till I saw this thread.

Edited April 23, 2007 by Ishimaru

[Dante74]

I know I may have posted something like this earlier but it could help ease the problem.

Got another idea, how about a random image is displayed, it shows like for example bars of different colors, the server would request how many are blue before you can submit. It would take a lot of coding to get a bot recognize it, as there would be more randomly generated stuff.

I'm just trying to suggest a few things, but I hope it helps out in some way.

But good job maintaining the spam on these boards , I didn't even know we had a problem till I saw this thread.

Then a wouldbe-member that is color blind would also have a hard time registering.

[David Hingtgen]

Many of those nifty features/suggestions are only available in the later versions of the board software, which we can't support until the "base architecture of the site" essentially is upgraded.

[Hurin]

I love all the suggestions that just say: "Hey, why don't you make IPB ask who their favorite Macross character is and then have that character appear in an animated GIF. Then have it ask what color that character's eyes are. When that's completed, have a Valkyrie appear and then transform while doing a little dance."

People, we are limited by what IPB's back-end can do. We're not PHP coders here. We can't just make it do anything.

[mister_e]

People, we are limited by what IPB's back-end can do. We're not PHP coders here. We can't just make it do anything.

Well why the hell not? I mean, I've seen commercials on TV that indicate that creating video games is just as easy as playing them. So, I can't imagine writing website code would be any more difficult

[Dante74]

We have a new spammer. (unless a jerking Britney Spears has anything to do with Macross )

Name=Hadicktenbas95

posted in this thread.

[azrael]

Just hit the "Report" button on the post and well take care of it.

[big F]

Thanks for the responses to this subject. I think my main problem is that there are a few of the forum subjects i had the tell me if anyone post a new subject option enabled. Basically because im lazy and kept missing stuff. Gonna look into some changes and maybe it will be better. For now just keep on killin those spam bots guy`s.

[Valkyrie addict]

guess I'm the 99.9% who doesn't notice them (lucky me), I have notice some odd post deleted and was curious why, now I know

what's the gain on spaming with porn/viagra stuff for them?

I just want to point out the great work our mods are doing!! good job guys!

[David Hingtgen]

Also, please don't reply to obvious spam---it does noticeably slow down the forum when we're cleaning it up, as each post is linked to every other reply in its thread---so if the spam post is all by its lonesome, it's quicker and easier to clean up.

And well over half of the spam posts are "Famous actress nude pics" or along those lines. If you see a thread with a famous person's name in the title---don't waste your time by clicking.

[UN Spacy]

Another spammer. Please ban this guy asap.

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showuser=5204

[David Hingtgen]

Yeesh, that guy was posting while I was in the process of banning him, and was the worst so far.

[Mr March]

I'm going to assume this latest incident is why the flood control on the boards is an annoying two minute delay.

[Hurin]

I'm going to assume this latest incident is why the flood control on the boards is an annoying two minute delay.

Righto!

(until Shawn returns from the Twilight Zone and makes it possible for us to update the forum software to be less spam-friendly)

[HWR MKII]

Be on the lookout the porn spammers are over on hobby fanatics and probably on the way here too.

[pfunk]

they hit AP today