Topic: Ban Trigger "By Keyword"

[BigMike]

I have been operating my forum since May of 2002, and for the absolutely first time ever, we got spammed by a new member who managed to start 29 new threads with sex links and pictures of porn, and also mass-flooded my shout box, before one of our moderators contacted me via cell phone around midnight tonight (waking me up thankgoodness) and I put a stop to the madness right away with a full out ban on all available triggers and a xxx.xxx.xxx.* ranged ip ban.

Then all was well on http://board.marlincrawler.com and back to sleep I went. Then I got another phone call around 2am at which a 2nd new user had created 25 new threads with the exact same spam content, of course managing to get around my ban triggers. Also, to make matters worse, he mass-private messaged hundreds(?) of members with the same information as in the threads including the images, to which I have already received multiple complaints about, and its 3:30am right now. I mean everyone is asleep! All hell is going to break loose in a couple more hours when people wake up and log in only to find some offensive PMs awaiting them

Naturally I expect him to return pretty soon to do it again as he has already done it twice successfully.

So here is my request: How about a Ban Trigger that is 'By Keyword' ? This spammer has used the same words, links, images, etc in all of the combined 50+ posts and countless PMs, so I think it would be really nice if I could have the forum immediately ban the user on a pre-determined Keyword.

The ban could be flexible, in a sense that you could just have it set for an automatic time ban, for instance, when triggered, the user is banned for only x minuets. Or you could have it set by member group. Just some ideas to ensure that a real genuine and contributing member won't get banned accidently, for instance for just quoting what the spammer had to say.

Also, for those who are interested, regarding the PM situation I had, I searched and found this thread helpful: Limit to PM's Sent at One Time. I am going to apply what Unknown W. Brackets suggested momentarily.

So what do you guys think? Since the word censor exists, you could also have it check a list of Ban triggering Keywords, just as it does Censor triggering keywords, and then effectively apply a certain type of ban.

More to the point, this spammer linked to a unique website in all of his threads/messages. All I would have to do is add this address to the Ban Keyword List and then when he tried his shameless plug, he would be the one getting plugged hahaha sucka

This would be quite the helpful addition for me right now

Good night, I hope from here out!
BigMike

[BigMike]

Also, for those who are interested, regarding the PM situation I had, I searched and found this thread helpful: Limit to PM's Sent at One Time. I am going to apply what Unknown W. Brackets suggested momentarily.

Ha! Jokes on me, I just found this option is installed by default under Features and Options (1.1 RC3). It was set at 10, and I moved it down to 5. Wow, I got around 60 return emails that bounced back to me due to errors in sending his spam PMs (as I have 5 gazillion members who are inactive and have since changed emails). I can only imagine how many PMs were sent to proper email addresses.... At 10 recipients at a time I bet one could send out 100 PMs in under 5 mins. Its now set at 5

[青山 素子]

Look into upgrading to 1.1 final. There is a new option that will allow you to limit the number of PMs that can be sent out in a time limit.

Also look into turning on image verification for registration, that should slow most spammers down.

[BigMike]

Motoko-chan,

Not only does my SMF 1.1 RC3 feature the new option that will allow you to limit the number of PMs that can be sent out in a time limit, but I have also enabled a feature that turned on image verification for registration, which has slowed most spammers down.


My request still stands. I think this would be a great feature to have and I know I could use it right now. Wish I had more time to learn SQL in more depth.

あなたの　じょげんを　ありがとうございました。　(anata no jogen wo arigatou gozaima******a.)
マイケルーさん　(Maikeru-san)

[BigMike]

ttt

[ubermensch]

I'm all for this!

A capital idea!

[BigMike]

I'm all for this!

A capital idea!

[BigMike]

Adding more to this, by having it membergroup specific you can easily only apply this ban trigger to your first couple of member groups. Then a potential spammer would have to have advanced beyond your first or second membergroup before he could try wasting everyone's time.

On my forum, the 2nd membergroup extends to 124 posts. I would just put the ban trigger active up to that group. That way members who have 125+ posts won't get triggered for simply quoting or discussing about the spam content.

It could be triggered by Keyword, by Phrase, by Sentence, etc.

Better yet, why not just make a SMF Bayesian spam filter?

The Bayes' theorem score of each post will return a value of which a threshold will be set to determine 1) if a ban applies and 2) what level of ban to impose. If a low score was triggered, then just employ like a 10-min ban. If it was a much larger score, then apply a 24-hour ban, etc.

Man I want this so bad I can taste it! I am wondering why this hasn't already been suggested/implicated--!

[BigMike]

This would be one killer feature

[Illori]

What Happened?

[BigMike]

What Happened?

An Error Has Occurred!
The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you.

[Illori]

try http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=471300.0 looks like our wikilinks mod did not pick up on that correctly

[Kindred]

BTW: I can't see this ever being done....   setting an auto-ban when someone enters specific words into a post seems unneeded...   just stop the spammers before they even register.

[BigMike]

Thank you for your reply. It would simply be a fallback or safety net in the event a spammer did register, or someone's existing account was compromised. Also, a spammer could be a genuine human like you and me, who goes through the hoops with CAPTCHA & email verification, and then proceeds to spam.

[Kindred]

hmmmm....

but, on my forums, the use of human questions, httpBL/Project Honeypot and Stop Forum Spam services has reduced even human spammers to Zero....

Additionally, I don't think that banning a user who has a compromised account is a good action.
I would delete the spam, reset the password and notify the user in email.....

[emanuele]

Something like this (more than ban I was thinking about post-moderation) was is in my todo-list...don't hold your breath waiting it!