AN AWFUL WARNING

[charmbrights]

I thought there was only one offender in the latest spam attack on here, but this is an attack under the names Alja, Greta-Njusja, Nastasja all advertising the same loan shark business.  These people charge interest rates into the thousands of per cent per annum.  Once you are hooked, escape is impossible.

Menugg is simply advertising boots,  which is less dangerous.

I, on the other hand, am submitting stories about people being raped, whipped, castrated, etc. which is what this site is for.

[js207]

All the same Russian-routed spammer, all squished with the same ban-hammer now. The really depressing bit for me is that their product isn't even illegal here, so loan-sharks advertise on TV with their 1000+% interest rates - and no doubt people end up falling into their trap, otherwise they couldn't afford TV advertising :-(

(Bah: in the time I was writing that, the spammer switched to a server in Thailand and hit us with another 14 messages. Persistent critters...)

[darknessmonger]

is there a way to put newly created members on moderation so any post is queued for aproval isntead of appearing directly on the forum?
as I see it. the bot creates an account. post about 10 times and then creates a different account.

[charmbrights]

is there a way to put newly created members on moderation so any post is queued for aproval isntead of appearing directly on the forum? ...

I'm sure that is technically possible, but think of the moderator effort needed.

[Emma]

is there a way to put newly created members on moderation so any post is queued for aproval isntead of appearing directly on the forum?
as I see it. the bot creates an account. post about 10 times and then creates a different account.

If there is a mod or a trusted user here that understands how to tweek some of the controls I have no problem giving admin powers.  I see only a few options and will go back in and give it another try.  These spam attacks are quite annoying. we need a few more mods so the love gets spread around.  Any volunteers?  Its rather easy to delete users as well as all of their created topics and posts in about three clicks.  Please let me know and I can switch ya over to mod status.

emma

[mothbrad]

I'd be happy to help out, and as I'm on the other side of the world as many folks here, I could cover a different time zone.

[js207]

If there is a mod or a trusted user here that understands how to tweek some of the controls I have no problem giving admin powers.  I see only a few options and will go back in and give it another try.  These spam attacks are quite annoying. we need a few more mods so the love gets spread around.  Any volunteers?  Its rather easy to delete users as well as all of their created topics and posts in about three clicks.  Please let me know and I can switch ya over to mod status.

I've taken a quick look in the settings and nothing jumps out at me. What might help, though, is adding a robots.txt file to stop Google indexing the forum - that's the main reason these spammers post, after all (if Google sees a forum post pointing to a URL, it boosts that page's PageRank; if Google can't see pages here, the forum won't be useful in that way to spammers).

By the way, I suspect deleting 'topics and posts' from the 'delete user' page but not deleting the account itself, just banning it, is better: that way, there's a record of their activity. Spammers often use the same range of IP addresses, which makes it easy to ban that range.

The original post on this thread about the extortionate interest rates reminded me of a tale I read and loved years ago, "Exploding Cupcakes" by "Harold" - a lovely piece of work. I seem to remember he originally wrote it for some sort of challenge ... something about writing a BDSM-themed story involving cupcakes and salesmen?

[js207]

I've enabled an option which makes new members pass a CAPTCHA for the first couple of posts, as well as for registering, and bumped the CAPTCHA complexity up to 'medium' (which adds a little bit of noise to the images, in case the spammers are using OCR to read them). The spammers are already getting past the existing CAPTCHA to sign up, but hopefully this will slow them down a bit.

[Emma]

I've enabled an option which makes new members pass a CAPTCHA for the first couple of posts, as well as for registering, and bumped the CAPTCHA complexity up to 'medium' (which adds a little bit of noise to the images, in case the spammers are using OCR to read them). The spammers are already getting past the existing CAPTCHA to sign up, but hopefully this will slow them down a bit.

You leave me in the technological dust.  I was afraid of screwing up the system by playing with the options I dont understand.  Thank dogs you do.  thank you!  Lets see if this helps.  If not, we can enlist more mods.  (crossing fingers)

[death2Uall]

I'd be willing to do some work as a mod, if you need me.

These spammers make me want to shoot a few of 'em and fuck the wounds.

 

[Emma]

wow... nothing I changed seems to make a difference.   Which one of you is the wiz that understands all of the technical stuff this forum can do to block this problem?  i deleted about 34 post last night by one douche...  Having to manually delete them can be done but its a pain in the ass and if we can actually make it spam proof or at least close then Id would be really happy.   My issues here at home have finally come to a head and Ill be around more too but I just am stumped by the onslaught of posting that is not welcome.

[js207]

That would be me, I think! There seems to be a newer version of SMF out now, which might help in this respect; there's also a plugin available which checks new users against the spammer database at stopforumspam.com and blocks them before they get a chance to post.

I just whacked one pre-emptively a minute ago - plugging e-cigarettes in the profile data, coming from the same IP address as several previous spam accounts. No more coming from there, at least. 

[Emma]

so what do we need to do?  Would you like to email me or you could even call.. ill send you a pm with my phone number if you like.  We can back everythng up and hopefully not need the back up.  My worst fear is that the whole forum blows up and our many interesting conversations go poof.  Let me know and Ill give you the keys to the car.  =)

emma

[js207]

Well, I PMed my phone # (and got an odd error the first time, so not sure it was sent successfully?) - but also made another little change to the anti-spam settings. Either we suddenly have a new mod acting much faster than me, or the spam problem has improved a lot since then?!

[Sprayman]

The spam situation has improved greatly in the last 2-3 days! Bravo!!!