Ugh the spam [Archive]

scrupul0us

08-10-2006, 09:53 AM

We are obviously gettin hammered with spam hard this week... Trevor, is there a way to impose an "x" wait period after joining b4 you can post OR force users to create a profile b4 they can post? this is getting out of control

ideas:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1178151&postcount=2
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1169078&postcount=6

B3NN3TT

08-10-2006, 10:55 AM

Dude why do you keep replying to it?!

Lighten up and don't feed the trolls. They don't care what you have to say.

scrupul0us

08-10-2006, 11:20 AM

They arent trolls, they are spammers... difference

Besides... it's fun to yell at them, esp since they don't care :)

EternalOne

08-10-2006, 11:50 AM

Taking their posts to the top only increases the value of their spam. The spam is not meant for the users, its meant for the search engine bots -- the more popular you make their thread, the better their spam gets ranked. :P

E1

B3NN3TT

08-10-2006, 12:48 PM

FastCougar

08-10-2006, 01:17 PM

I had disabled email verification because of AOL/MSN/Hotmail/Yahoo users not getting the automated email with the confirmation link to activate their accounts. I have reinabled it ... we will see what happens.

scrupul0us

08-10-2006, 01:24 PM

That should take us off their radar for awhile hopefully

as for you other guys... who cares if it gets put to the top.. by the time the engine spiders see this site it will be deleted so STFU :)

LostRacer

08-10-2006, 01:33 PM

scrupul0us

08-10-2006, 02:02 PM

depending on the sites domain, some email servers will block mail from the site/domain entirely to deal with spam coming from other sites/domains on those servers

JScullin

08-10-2006, 02:23 PM

FastCougar

08-10-2006, 05:00 PM

If this is a problem for anyone I have umpteen Gmail invites I can dish out.So do I for that matter!

EternalOne

08-11-2006, 12:00 PM

as for you other guys... who cares if it gets put to the top.. by the time the engine spiders see this site it will be deleted so STFU :)

Do you realize how often the spiders scour large sites such as this?

On my website at this very moment I have 25 spiders on my forum, from Google, MSN, and Yahoo, plus one that I have no idea who it is. GoogleBot is on my site just about 24hrs a day archiving new posts. When spammers post on my site it is ranked and indexed in Google within 6 hours on average. All it takes is for the spider to see the page ONCE, and then it'll be a supplemental result once the post is deleted, yet it will still exist in Google's cache. This is not as true for smaller and newer websites, but sites such as here and my website which are 5+ yrs old are considered authoritive in GoogleBot's eyes, and it trusts the results more-so, which is why the spammers target these websites.

E1

scrupul0us

10-24-2006, 07:24 AM

trevor did u disable email verification again? tons of spam bots here again... u should enable image verification at signup at as well if this version supports it

JScullin

10-24-2006, 07:30 AM

It's hard to get around because they even use live people to just verify emails so bots can still get in.

Some even go to the lengths to have people enter the Catchpa (the twisted letters & numbers) so bots can get in. It's not just us, boards all over the net are getting hit.

I guess after implementing email verification & a catchpa the next step would be to confine them to the Newbie section until they properly introduce themselves or are approved by an Admin/Supermod.

Just click the Members List up top and sort by posts. There are 8+ pages of users with zero posts that I'm sure are just bots waiting to post. I've gone through the obvious ones and deleted them when I can, but sometimes users just make goofy names so there's no telling.

scrupul0us

10-24-2006, 09:47 AM

yea and the only that sucks about confining newbies to that one section is that if they have a valid problem or question for another section then u get people like me who are all "wrong section newb"... that and we dont have someone on staff to approve people all day/night long

but i think some form of time limit/section restriction might be a good idea with proper implementation

wadespencer99

10-24-2006, 11:07 AM

If you confine spam noobs to the welcome section, we'll just end up with all the spam posts in that section...

Making it so their first 10 posts or something have to be approved would probably do the trick....

JScullin

10-24-2006, 11:27 AM

I can't imagine the headache of approving 10 posts each for every noobie that joins.

wadespencer99

10-24-2006, 11:30 AM

I know...I was just saying.....

BigBalledOX

10-24-2006, 11:39 AM

You would need someone who spends far too much time on NECO for his own good to do that . . . :cover:

scrupul0us

11-03-2006, 10:03 AM

Just a thought here... i see scullin posted that we should stop repsonding to spam b/c it just helps the spiders crawl the threads... why then are we just locking the threads and NOT deleting them?

Frosty

11-03-2006, 10:40 AM

Those threads DO get deleted. There's just 1 in the General Info section that has a lock on them.

azbobbybooshay10

01-31-2007, 01:22 AM

Damn, been getting at least 3 or 4 a day that I can see. Is there anything you can do Trevor? This is getting outrageous...

Pyro81

02-02-2007, 10:53 AM

Define "day".

EternalOne

02-02-2007, 03:43 PM

Easy fix... Add Capcha.

Not so easy fix... Remove the textbox for the website URL on signup, then in the page that gets the POST request if they fill out the website, boot them. Also verify that the POST is coming FROM this server and not a different site.

The robots use auto-posting webscripts, they auto-register since all vBulletin sites use the same required info -- they never see the form, they just POST their info in direct and them POST their spam the same way. This restriction would solve that. Another thing would be to add a NEW required field to registration (such as Year of Cougar Owned) -- the robots wont know about this field and therefore will be blocked from reg's. If they have to put a human in to do the regs it loses its appeal since so many other sites are wide open to this attack...

E1

THEKID

02-06-2007, 09:45 AM

This restriction would solve that. Another thing would be to add a NEW required field to registration (such as Year of Cougar Owned)

E1

+1

LostRacer

02-06-2007, 09:52 AM

Another thing would be to add a NEW required field to registration (such as Year of Cougar Owned) -

E1
Can that be usd for other cars as well? Not everyone here owns cougrs anymore :shrug:

Goldie

02-06-2007, 10:14 AM

nope. :evil: all new members have to have a cougar. Only those existing members who got rid of theirs can stay. j/k :rofl:

FastCougar

02-06-2007, 12:36 PM

Easy fix... Add Capcha.It's there ... there are humans on the other end of the keyboard :banghead:

EternalOne

02-06-2007, 02:08 PM

Unfortunately vBulletin has a TON of robots going around regging on various forums.

Here's the solution according to my Google search for 'vbulletin forum spam' Took less than a minute to find, and I'd bet the install of the fixes will be less time than the mods spend on spam a week. ;)

http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/showthread.php?p=40796

E1

bubby

02-06-2007, 02:12 PM

What about that extra text field that makes you type in the numbers you see on the graphic?

FastCougar

02-06-2007, 04:00 PM

What about that extra text field that makes you type in the numbers you see on the graphic?That is already there and thus my point ... either they have found a way to OCR the graphic or there is physically a person on the other end of the keyboard.

skater

02-06-2007, 07:36 PM

This isn't an easy problem. I used to have a roller skating related forum that I shut down because of all the spammers (I'd spend 5-10 minutes/day cleaning it up, and it wasn't heavily used, so it was hard for me to justify keeping it running). They'd usually just register to put their URLs in the "Website" link in their profiles; the phpBB software displays new users even if they haven't confirmed their account yet. (And the authors didn't seem interested in a mod to remove that field from the user accounts. *sigh*) It's a frustrating problem.

I wonder how spammers would feel if we started plastering ads for crap all over the outside of their houses and cars.

bubby

02-06-2007, 09:03 PM

I wonder how spammers would feel if we started plastering ads for crap all over the outside of their houses and cars.

I have thought about this before too. How do you find them though ya know what I mean? I don't know any spammers.

It is fun putting junk mail in the envelopes of other junk mail you get and sending it back to them though. :rofl:

katescoug

02-06-2007, 09:23 PM

where do you find the time bubby?

BigBalledOX

02-06-2007, 10:53 PM

It is fun putting junk mail in the envelopes of other junk mail you get and sending it back to them though. :rofl:

This is even more fun. (http://www.vertical-visions.com/_temp/postagepaid/index2.html)

azbobbybooshay10

02-07-2007, 12:03 AM

This is even more fun. (http://www.vertical-visions.com/_temp/postagepaid/index2.html)

OMG, I had no idea you could do that. :rofl:

bubby

02-07-2007, 09:42 AM

where do you find the time bubby?

It actually requires hardly any time at all. You go and get your mail and have 2 pieces of junk mail. Open em up, take out the prepaid envelopes, and swap the inserts into the other envelope and your done. Takes less than 2 minutes :tongue:

katescoug

02-07-2007, 09:45 AM

yes yes i suppose you're right. i can see how that wouldn't be time consuming at all. :rofl:

bubby

02-07-2007, 09:47 AM

This is even more fun. (http://www.vertical-visions.com/_temp/postagepaid/index2.html)

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

I know what I'll be doing tonight. :evil:

bubby

02-07-2007, 09:48 AM

yes yes i suppose you're right. i can see how that wouldn't be time consuming at all. :rofl:

The thing BBOX posted would be time consuming, but that would be so worth it. :rofl: I'd love to see their faces.

azbobbybooshay10

02-08-2007, 04:31 AM

Good God, its getting worse. Latest one was somehow able to post across 4 different sections (Gen Info, 2.5 Perf, FSL Auto Related, and Ontario NECO). This crap has got to stop....

scrupul0us

02-08-2007, 10:02 AM

trevor... instead of just confirming the graphic, ask for the md5 hash of the graphic too... that outta slow down the masses and keep stupid peple away too :)

CougarBear

03-30-2007, 03:03 AM

looks like the vb needs updated

FastCougar

03-30-2007, 11:26 AM

looks like the vb needs updatedWould if we couldn ... the current host has me tied down to an older version of MySQL, thus why I started to look to John for hosting on his server. However, between my car and my personal life, I have VERY little time to dedicate to making a migration plan and then doing it. Unless you have done this before, you have no idea how much work it is before you actually "flip the switch".

scrupul0us

03-30-2007, 12:34 PM

agreed... migrating a community isnt a simple process... esp with VB... u have to essentially upgrade your version to the latest to make sure your DB is compatible and then port it over to the new host and reconfigure the entire board... not to mention moving all the attachments over... this is why we lose the forums for a week or so