Pete's QBASIC Site

spam problems

2007-01-01T19:30:03-05:00

Not to ruin all the fun, but what is admin approval supposed to help with?
Sure it'll catch the bots being named www.weightlosspills.com

But what about: Sarah, Michael, CarBob, seaBiscuit$, sid6.7 and so on

If you didnt get it, my point is: How do you identify a bot from the name only.

well it should get the "bulk" of them and thats a good start
alot of the names are pertty obvious like "bcxzsedft" or
"_MOUSEX", "p0rnofbritney" "helenXXX" and such esp. those
gibberish ones which there seem to be alot of...

take a look at the page of the newest memebers and
you can pertty much guess 30-40% of which ones are
spam right away...

Statistics: Posted by sid6.7 — Mon Jan 01, 2007 7:30 pm

spam problems

2007-01-01T19:25:23-05:00

thanks pete we apprciate anything you do to help smack the
bots...

Statistics: Posted by sid6.7 — Mon Jan 01, 2007 7:25 pm

spam problems

2006-12-31T02:57:08-05:00

Manually removing them is easy, yeah, but being able to block them automatically is a much better concept. It's just too bad phpbb isn't set up for that by default. It coudl be modified to do so, though.

Statistics: Posted by Nodtveidt — Sun Dec 31, 2006 2:57 am

spam problems

2006-12-31T00:22:11-05:00

It's not that hard to tell a spambot, actually. 99% of them make use of the Website address to promote their website, so that's the best tip-off. Otherwise, real people tend to actually fill out the other profile fields while spambots usually leave them blank.

Statistics: Posted by Pete — Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:22 am

spam problems

2006-12-30T12:14:01-05:00

The yagl forum has been slammed with spambots over the last couple of months. Despite the fact that the forum is pretty much dead now, I still continue to purge it of bogus crap. Filtering out potentially "bad" usernames is about all I could do outside of account verification. phpbb is REALLY limited in its ability to filter spam at the script level.

Statistics: Posted by Nodtveidt — Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:14 pm

spam problems

2006-12-30T11:05:21-05:00

What's all this? I'm NOT a spam bot!

Although you CAN get cheap weight loss pills at http://www.weightlosspillsforcheap.com

and you can get a loan with a low, low apr at http://www.lendingtree.com
Remember, when banks compete over you, you win!

Oh, and Z!re, you may already be a WINNER!
http://www.clickhereziretoclaimyourfreeprizenow.com

Admin approval should be better than nothing, Z!re...

Statistics: Posted by seaBiscuit$ — Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:05 am

spam problems

2006-12-30T10:41:38-05:00

Not to ruin all the fun, but what is admin approval supposed to help with?
Sure it'll catch the bots being named www.weightlosspills.com

But what about: Sarah, Michael, CarBob, seaBiscuit$, sid6.7 and so on

If you didnt get it, my point is: How do you identify a bot from the name only.

Statistics: Posted by Z!re — Sat Dec 30, 2006 10:41 am

spam problems

2006-12-30T02:29:42-05:00

I turned admin approval on this afternoon, actually...after spending 20 mins deleting about 100 spam posts.

In a few days I'm gonna go through and delete all the users with 0 posts and then come up with some kind of a system to make sure that we actually enable legit new user accounts.

Statistics: Posted by Pete — Sat Dec 30, 2006 2:29 am

spam problems

2006-12-29T19:43:40-05:00

Admin approval has worked on all forums I've registered on that use it.

It isn't so good when admins don't bother to log in often though. I once waited 1 month for an account to be approved by an admin. After that, I just gave up.

Statistics: Posted by commanderkeen — Fri Dec 29, 2006 7:43 pm

spam problems

2006-12-26T13:28:58-05:00

How about removing every user account that has 0 posts?
Many spam bots has 0 posts since moderators has removed those. If some real poster looses hes account then he can recreate it in case he wants to post.

Image verification aint actually so good protect, in our site, it wont prevent bots nearly at all for registering.
Maybe admin approval would be better choice right away? Naturally in that case, Pete should give admin rights to some one else too.

Statistics: Posted by bungytheworm — Tue Dec 26, 2006 1:28 pm

spam problems

2006-12-25T22:53:39-05:00

cool pete i look forward to helping get rid of some of these
goofy spammers...yeah it looks to me like it around 20 to 1
for legit accounts this last couple weeks though we did get quite
a few new guys though that were real...

thanks

Statistics: Posted by sid6.7 — Mon Dec 25, 2006 10:53 pm

spam problems

2006-12-25T10:27:45-05:00

Well, I think the first priority will be to go through the 2000+ user accounts registered here and delete all the spambots. (I'm sure that makes up more than half of the accounts.)

First thing I'll do is install a mod that makes it easier to delete spam accounts, and some registration mods that will help curb new spambots from registering. If the spam problem persists, I'll make new registrations require admin approval.

ANYWAY, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Statistics: Posted by Pete — Mon Dec 25, 2006 10:27 am

spam problems

2006-12-25T01:12:31-05:00

He should just add a image verification mod to phpBB, it's quick and easy...

Disabling posting completely is not an option.

Moved to general, this really isnt news, or important, or helpful..

dont move my post zire, its relavent when i asked him to change
something concerning the operation of the board...think about it
whether you find is useful or not is irrelvent....its up to pete not you.

thanks for the reply pete i wouldnt mind approving posts as a MOD
if it keeps the spam down...

Statistics: Posted by sid6.7 — Mon Dec 25, 2006 1:12 am

spam problems

2006-12-24T19:18:19-05:00

Pete, that solution sounds fine to me.
We can wait --- we're not going anywhere.

Merry Christmas to you.

Regards..... Moneo

Statistics: Posted by moneo — Sun Dec 24, 2006 7:18 pm

spam problems

2006-12-24T17:26:45-05:00

Wow, yeah, the spam is starting to get pretty ridiculous here.

I spent a few hours about a month ago installing anti-spam mods over at the ictv.org forums (which had an even bigger spam problem than these forums).

I ended up finding a solution that almost completely stops spam posts, but also makes it require admin approval for new posters to register (spambots and real people). Not ideal, but at least there's no spam.

Unfortunately, right now I'm on my Macbook Pro at home for Christmas, so I don't have access to my PC with all of my web dev software and the files for Pete's QB Site / QB Express... it will have to wait about a week before I'll be able to do that.

Statistics: Posted by Pete — Sun Dec 24, 2006 5:26 pm