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#231417 12/02/2009 12:12 PM
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So since sometime last night we've had a consistent stream of users registered for the sole purpose of filling in their profile to promote their website and that's it. It's automated and behind an anonymizer it looks like. For now I've turned on admin approval for all new users since there's been a couple hundred of them.

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Perhaps something to check during registration for Proxy servers and such could be a plus for version 8.

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Is it just on this forum or is all UBB forums a target for this?

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I've not had any problems on my site, so I'm thinking it's just on here.


Greg AKA Virgil Earp at the OK Corral
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Yeah, I guess it's just our turn to deal with em. Not really a big deal, they've been registering in order to fill out their profile with links to their site. I've modified it so they need to at least have 10 posts in order to do that. By time time they make 10 posts they'll be deleted anyways, so they end up wasting more of their own time than ours.

Kinda funny, since I made the change, I watch em register and then try to go into the basic profile. They can't do that, so they go into their display preferences, but there isn't anything there that is publically viewable. They are like little lemmings.

Fairly obvious who registered to spam.

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When I was still running vBulletin I was plagued by those guys almost from the minute I opened the site up. Most were from a .ru domain. vB is a huge spam magnet of the 1st degree...LOL. Now that I run it with UBB, nada on the spammers, even though the url remains the same.


Greg AKA Virgil Earp at the OK Corral
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I haven't had to deal with a spammer in months, and my site gets a fair amount of traffic.

Someone here posted a link to this site a while back:

http://www.stopforumspam.com/

On those rare occasions when I get a spammer, I report them. I use it more to screen new registrations. I have also found Googling email addresses to be useful. Sometimes Google picks up data from stopforumspan, and I can also see if the new registrant belongs to other forums or whatever.





Steve

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Originally Posted by Rick
Yeah, I guess it's just our turn to deal with em. Not really a big deal, they've been registering in order to fill out their profile with links to their site. I've modified it so they need to at least have 10 posts in order to do that. By time time they make 10 posts they'll be deleted anyways, so they end up wasting more of their own time than ours.

Okay you lost me on this?
I assume you made a custom group for new signups that are promoted after 10 posts to the normal user group.
But what permission setting stops them from editing their own profile ?

Or is this a hack?



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This would be a hack wink I just put in a post count check before I allow them to edit their basic profile, or send any private messages. Definitely permissions I need to add into version 8.

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Originally Posted by SteveS
I haven't had to deal with a spammer in months, and my site gets a fair amount of traffic.

Someone here posted a link to this site a while back:

http://www.stopforumspam.com/

On those rare occasions when I get a spammer, I report them. I use it more to screen new registrations. I have also found Googling email addresses to be useful. Sometimes Google picks up data from stopforumspan, and I can also see if the new registrant belongs to other forums or whatever.
Yes, they have even an API but unfortunately it is not allowed to integrate it in commercial scripts.

There is a similar service that have no restrictions:
http://www.botscout.com

Maybe something for version 8? wink

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I have something in mind for this, but I need to wait a bit to see how a couple things pan out before I open my mouth wink

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Just my 2cents.
I have used stopforumspam.com for a couple of years.
It seems to update only with repeat offenders. Good part.
But I am not aware of any being removed from the lists down the road. Bad part.
So even though I use it I release a ip or email on occasion because of that.
Using htaccess not the board ban options because I ban them from everything.


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Looks like three net new members just joined now.
34minerals,eyetests and takenotice. Humm!!


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Oh and another and another.
barath111,dogcancervet ,
Sure makes the online island look good but what about the member count?


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Is it wrong for us to register? hurmm

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Originally Posted by Coco
Is it wrong for us to register? hurmm

Everyone was a new member once!


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out in extertnal links of profile the "nofollow" and i htink the problem will be soved

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Why have profile information when you don't want people to use it? Don't get me wrong- I hate spam, but if it's there and able to be filled out, shouldn't it be used?

Having said that, the minimum of 10 post requirement is a great idea and should screen appropriately.

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I have admin approval enabled, so I get to check users before they are approved, if one "looks spammy" I dig deeper. I like the fact that i can get notified when more than one users logs in from the same ip address as well. So far I have had a few spammers hit, I have used .htaccess on my server to stop those ip addresses when I find them. Because I got very tired of bots hitting some web forms on my site, now the entire ip ranges of some isp's have been blocked... it's not very democratic, but this is a very local and specialized site so I really don't worry too much about it.

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Originally Posted by Philipp
Yes, they have even an API but unfortunately it is not allowed to integrate it in commercial scripts.

There is a similar service that have no restrictions:
http://www.botscout.com

Maybe something for version 8? wink

has anyone tried this with UBB yet?


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I think with the current spammer issue on this site. Rick is looking at some avenues to enhance blocking them.
Maybe something like this will evolve sooner than we think.


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Originally Posted by peter50
spammer are annoying
and so are you!


"No matter where you go, there you are."
"If you can't do something smart, Do something right"
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Originally Posted by Ruben
I think with the current spammer issue on this site. Rick is looking at some avenues to enhance blocking them.
Maybe something like this will evolve sooner than we think.

Unfortunately coding can't really overcome stupidity. We put a bunch of restrictions in place, external links in profile have nofollow, and they continue to come.

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Observation.
Looking at the user list.
About 25+ have registered just today so far.
A couple have tried to post to get the 10 limit imposed.
One succeeded peter50 then updated his profile and left.
At least he worked at it.
Ian came on board and started deleting posts and banned a couple.

Results
They still populate the member list.
They still show they have posts but they don't display because the post has been deleted.

Conclusion
The hack still needs some improvement.
Just deleting posts and banning is not the answer while a net new user is posting. To labor intensive.
I don't have a answer just my observation.


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what about adding something so that only those with a license can post anywhere but the pre-sale area, and only those with a license can add a signature, update profile, have an avatar, etc.

doesn't have to be a current one, mine expired a little bit ago, and I am waiting for 8 to come out before renewing, or I have enough money to get a gold license, which ever comes first.

just as long as there is a unique key tied to each registration

Last edited by Bad Frog; 12/05/2009 2:00 PM. Reason: spelling

"No matter where you go, there you are."
"If you can't do something smart, Do something right"
"There are three kinds of people in the world, those who can count, and those who can't"
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Maybe need to enhance with one fell swoop. A dialog to delete posts,delete member and ban(ip,email,etc) with the option to select one or multiple options before submit.
Very hard to determine this type of spammer is legit or not with out human intervention.

But anyway something has attracted them to this site recently.


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Great. I have 69 new registrations in the approval queue. Now I have to figure out which ones are legit, which is pretty much impossible, other than the ones I recognize from here. Time to remove my site from my profile!


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Good thing to do is make sure that guests cannot view profiles or the userlist. That's the incentive they are looking for, hoping search engines crawl their profile to harvest the link to their site. They aren't clueing into the nofollow, but I think they'll catch on that search engines can't view their profile at all, so it's a waste of time.

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Yup. I actually meant to type "signature!"


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Originally Posted by ricardo
haha little lemmings, I really love that game, I still play it in psp, rick why do you think that in such a short period of time as you explained up there in the opening post for this subject, why do you think that so many people tried to spam at the same time this forum?

I smell a rat....


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We are all getting jaded with suspicion.
Need to give newbies a chance.


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Newbies are normally newbies because they need help with your product, not because they're sociable. :wary:

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Originally Posted by Bad Frog
what about adding something so that only those with a license can post anywhere but the pre-sale area, and only those with a license can add a signature, update profile, have an avatar, etc.
I'm really against restricting anything forum related to users having a license... there are a lot of people here that are users of a forum (our own Ian Spense was one of them for quite a while). Restricting to that level will do far more harm than good...

vBulletin does this, it really grinds me as a web developer, because if i want to take a look at any of their code (modifications, updates, styles, etc) I have to go hunt down someone that has a license.


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there is a plugin for wordpress called Akismet. This is used for blog comment spamming.

Rick, may be you need to can check it to improve your API.

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akismet simply hands down RAWKS!! wink

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I tried that with vB and it never stopped a single spammer.


Greg AKA Virgil Earp at the OK Corral
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well there are millions of wordpress installs out there (myself, i have 2) and it works great for them..

i'm wondering if the vB implementation was done wrong then..

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Could be. vB seems to be nothing but a spam magnet anyway, which is one of the many reasons I dumped it in favor of UBB.


Greg AKA Virgil Earp at the OK Corral
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Rick #231998 12/10/2009 12:15 PM
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Just testing posts...

Kam the Mortgage #232001 12/10/2009 12:30 PM
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Originally Posted by Kam the Mortgage
Just testing posts...


smells like meat in a can!


"No matter where you go, there you are."
"If you can't do something smart, Do something right"
"There are three kinds of people in the world, those who can count, and those who can't"
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