Bulk deletion of Spammers

[Jade Elizabeth]

i dont know how everyones getting spammers
i mean i havent had any

ive had a few accounts sign up and never log in, or post (4 ish in the first month) but they looked legit, real names and emails.

do you have the useractivation on?
you could change it to admin aproval, that would really stop it lol

[MrKim]

I have all that stuff on.  (with phpBB)  You guys don't seem to have a clue what we go through or it would be in the default installation.  Lots of us get 20-30 spam regs a day.  I don't see you or phpBB doing anything beyond the visual box, which has been hacked by children years ago.  I now require people to contact me personally to reg.  The spammers have won and all the code writers want to is make the site pretty.

Kim

[Jade Elizabeth]

I have all that stuff on.  (with phpBB)  You guys don't seem to have a clue what we go through or it would be in the default installation.  Lots of us get 20-30 spam regs a day.  I don't see you or phpBB doing anything beyond the visual box, which has been hacked by children years ago.  I now require people to contact me personally to reg.  The spammers have won and all the code writers want to is make the site pretty.

Kim

not true at all
all the mods on here are using the forums for themselves (or 90% atleast)

and EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU COME UP WITH A BRICK WALL, THEY WILL, I REPEAT, WILL FIND A WAY TO PUSH ENOUGH BRICKS OUT TO GET BACK IN!!

you cannot get around it
im sorry, but you cant.

its like deciding you wont die
your gonna friggin die

[MrKim]

Now you are being absolutely ridiculous.  You are telling me that they can't be beaten so we should lay down?  Your advice is worth nothing.



This is going nowhere.  I guess 'pretty' is more important  than functional. 

[Jade Elizabeth]

i never said to lay down

but every time someone makes a way to stop them, they find away around it

so we just have to wait for a new way, if your so smart, you make one
or atleast supply an idea cause obviously no one else has any

[MrKim]

phpBB has a mod where in the registration a question is asked.  Such as, "What color is my red car?"  With a box to type the answer...red.  If a bot is created to put in the answer, change the question.

Not a fix against human spammers but that may never come. 

Why is this type of mod not included in the program???  phpBB or SM?

As soon as I have time I will install it.  As for now my reg page is dead.  I don't have time to check out 30 regs a day while 29.9 are spammers.  If this forum's software had this I would convert in a heartbeat. 

[Oldiesmann]

Between SMF's visual verification system and email activation, I don't have much trouble with spammers. The problem with a question-and-answer system is that it's not something that can easily be internationalized. If you store the info in the database, then you either have to store things differently for each language, or you have to stick to one language. This may work fine for many boards, but some boards, including this one, allow guests to choose their language before they register.

[MrKim]

You do other things for other languages.  Do this too.  Or at least ENGLISH.  I don't think it is a concern here or anywhere else.  Let the spammers win.  Cater to the small sites.

[Thunderdownunder]

Hello all

Well I certainly did not expect my post to be have this kind of response- looks like I struck a chord (or something) with Mr Kim !!

I am also using phpBB2xx but am seriously considering using SMF instead. Accordingly I have the following Yes/ No questions which I would like answered.
) In the English language, does the English language current version of SMF have the "red car" question (or something similar ?)
2) in the English language, does the English language current version of SMF have the "coloured/ twisted letters" facility" ?

Thank you for your attention

[MrKim]

Apparently there are not enough English users to make this worthwhile.  I now have the 'red car' mod installed in my phbb forum and it works great.  I was ready to switch to SMF but will not now.

MrKim

[Thunderdownunder]

Thank you for your response Mr Kim.

Would it be possible for you to PM me with the details of the "red car" MOD for phpBB (and details as to how to make it any other type of question).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Would someone from SMF mind confirming that Mr Kim is correct ie that SMF are not interested in having the "red car" question (or similar) for SMF.

I should point out that the only people I want reading my forum are those who speak and read English, Mandarin or Cantonese due to the subject matter of the forum being of National (Australian) interest only

I would also be very surprised if SMF are not interested in assisting users ffrom preventing spammers.

I look forward to a prompt response.

[Thunderdownunder]

I would also like to point out that EVERY phpBB board that I have seen in the last three months has been VERY heavily spammed.

It is all very well for some smartarse to say " implement site admin approval of new members". I dont want submissions in triplicate from prospective members.......... I want to see PROPER posts from REAL members- not ads for viagra and XXX sites.

Would somone from SMF please answer my queries in my previous post.

Thank you for your assistance

[Jade Elizabeth]

soon they will have some bot that scans the question, and when they see "what colour" and "red car" they will enter red

you could get the custom profile field mod though, they have some boxes you can put on the registration that require filling lol

[MrKim]

They are not going to personally make a bot for each forum.   The question is one which I make up.  My question on my forum is "What color is my yellow WindRider?"   If they do want to create a bot to get past that stage, I change the question in 5 min.  It could be changed in 15 sec. if it was written into the forum software instead of a mod.

BUT WE GOTTA HAVE CUTE NOT FUNCTIONAL!!!

Thunder

I'll try to email ya on this. 

[Jade Elizabeth]

it will look for what colour, and then colours
it wont be specified to the question, thats stupid

[青山 素子]

* Motoko-chan sighs and retypes the long post that was lost. Silly laptop.

As far as I know, a question/answer system is not being considered for addition. As the 1.1 branch is feature-frozen, it would go in 2.0 if it was to be made a core feature.

The problem with automated systems like CAPTCHA and question/answer is that they can be bypassed given enough financial incentive and computing power. I need not mention the software company that made a product to break TicketMaster's CAPTCHA and then made good money selling it to scalpers. Recaptcha looks like a cool solution to easy-to-OCR CAPTCHA problems.

With such simple questions as "Type the word red." it would be easy to bypass with a few regular expressions to cover the permutations. You also really can't do stuff like "Type two as a digit." without turning away users who aren't familiar with what a digit is. Toss out simple questions like "What color is the sky?" as well, since they can be looked up.

With a q/a system, you'd be best served by asking questions that the audience you are targeting would know, but can't be efficiently solved. Perhaps "What is the name of Kim Possible's sidekick's pet?" for a forum on Disney Channel or the Kim Possible TV show would work for something a bot couldn't easily handle (the answer is Rufus).

If no one makes a mod for this, I might have a go when I'm less busy, but it certainly won't have any default questions (that would be asking for trouble).

[MrKim]

I doubt there is enough financial incentive for spammers to write code for each forum.  Comparing my site to a 'Ticketmaster' is not a good analogy.  Your examples are not realistic.  If someone does not know what a digit is I don't care if they don't make it to my site. 

The beauty is that you put in your own question.  Such as "what color is my pink dog?"  "What planet do we live on?"  "The Authorization code is 'kim'  Type 'kim' in the box'

Too many variables for bots to get it unless specifically written for that forum.  Then we change the question.   Too simple for you guys to get. 

Make it for the 5 most common languages.  English and French would be enough for me.  I can live without all the local Tibetan mountain tribes stopping in. 

The programmers here and phpBB are making up lame excuses for not doing it. 

[Sverre]

Maybe we've just been lucky, but since our live forum was upgraded to SMF 1.1.x with CAPTCHA almost a year ago, we haven't had any problems with spam bots.

[青山 素子]

Make it for the 5 most common languages.  English and French would be enough for me.  I can live without all the local Tibetan mountain tribes stopping in. 

The programmers here and phpBB are making up lame excuses for not doing it. 

For multi-lingual forums (such as this one here), how do you propose to provide a question in the correct language for a user? How will you manage that? Don't just say to use English since everyone knows it; some of our users don't speak any English.

I'm not being difficult, just pointing out that providing a useful feature takes a lot of planning.

Maybe we've just been lucky, but since our live forum was upgraded to SMF 1.1.x with CAPTCHA almost a year ago, we haven't had any problems with spam bots.

Not lucky. I helped one forum move from phpBB to SMF back in the 1.1 RC days. With their old system, they were spammed all the time. Since the conversion, I haven't seen one automated spam post. With another forum I helped move in the same way (back in 1.1.1), they got the same result. Since it is a support forum, they allow guest posting. There hasn't been any spam their either since guest posting requires image verification as well.