UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums Resources and Customizing Admin Zone Getting Spammed again

This happened last November and now it's started again today.

I have a posting from



with garbage and xxx listings. All postings to my forum require a registered account. So how is this happening?

Any ideas?

ubbt version?

Bill from the Quah is running 7.4.1.

I'd do a search for that IP and see if it's been used by a registered user.

HERE is a site I use for checking spam IP numbers.

You need to go back and check your forum permissions.
I just posted a new topic in 1916-1922.
I did not go through all your forums but permissions allow guests to post at least on that one.

HERE is my post at your site.

Looks like you changed the permissions now

Thanks everybody... yes, the very first thing I did was check the IP address.

It turns out that I had ONE forum which allowed GUEST postings. So, I fixed that, and haven't had any further weirdo postings.

I've been getting quite a few spam posts from IP addresses originating in China. They actually register and everything it seems! Or are they smart bots getting around the CAPTCHA and authenticating their registration emails? Seems it'd be a PITA for them to do all that manually...

Unless you have a hole somewhere in your forum permissions Like Bill did. Then they would be registered to post.
One site I use for validating spammers is:
http://www.stopforumspam.com

But I block them in the htaccess file not in the ubb control panel.

Likely they're just users manually registering then spamming; you'll find this the case if it actually takes them time to start posting and posts aren't immediately one after another

Yeah, it seems manual. They must have some patience! Is the payoff that good for them to waste so much time/effort??

And great link, Ruben, thanks!

[offtopic]

Wow - I just noticed Ruben register here 3 years before Rick, David, Giz -- and even before Allen! Must be old school. Sorry don't recognize the name, and I started with UBB in '01 or maybe even '00 through work.

I then noticed that I registered 08/08/06 and thought it'd be cool if it was 08/08/08

THEN I noticed Giz registered 06/05/06 and he probably wishes he registered a day later!

[/offtopic]

'eh our reg dates are from the migration of classic i think; never found out exactly what the date is here... I was regged here before ubbdev, and my reg date there is like 99 ...

And yeh they must be patient; but think about it, they likely turn in a paper saying where they spammed, and get a payout for every batch of 100-1000 messages; likely small dividends, but if you look at it, most are from other countries which have no minimum wage, so to them it could be living it rich...

I think the registration dates had to do when this site went to EVE and back to threads. I recall I had problems logging in back then.
Maybe there were some conversion issues so someone just took a stab at dates.
All our old posts are probably all in the anonymous group now. But that could be a good thing since we would have a member number of #1.
HE HE
I also know my user name is a email address now, it never was before back then.

I get a lot of spam in my 6.5.4. version and i thougth it was a security issue in older versions, now i see that its still a problem in newer versions.

With the 7.x version it is more secure that the 6.x series. But!!!
It all depends on what your security settings are.
The more open you make your board the more you expose yourself to spammers.
Nothing will stop a person not a bot, from registering on your board and posting spam.
Even if you moderate registrations, How are you to know a person is a spammer.
In BILL B's issue he missed a setting to disallow guests to post in one forum.
If you enable all the security settings today it will not eliminate all spammers but will minimize it quite a bit. But like anything else the more security you add the more it will make it difficult for users to register.
I currently am using 7.5.2.
Coming from a Classic Version point of view I could not be happier that I made the change.

Also for jgeoff he is using 7.3 on his board I believe.

Manual registrations would effect any system, regardless of how secure it is or what system it was (vBulletin, IPV, SMF, etc); it'd be a user manually registering and posting spam.

v7 is far better with automated registrations than prior versions.