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Stop Spammer

Started by M-DVD, December 31, 2008, 07:31:43 AM

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Dream of Omnimaga

As for September, this mod no longer appears to work. It no longer detects spammers and when I do a scan in my member list, it doesn't respond at all anymore, then 5 minutes later, it timeouts. Yet, the Stop Forum Spam site is still up.

My guess is that it is due to their website redesign, which probably killed the mod. Do you think we will see another update soon?

snoopy_virtual

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 08, 2010, 02:11:30 PM
As for September, this mod no longer appears to work. It no longer detects spammers and when I do a scan in my member list, it doesn't respond at all anymore, then 5 minutes later, it timeouts. Yet, the Stop Forum Spam site is still up.

My guess is that it is due to their website redesign, which probably killed the mod. Do you think we will see another update soon?

I don't know what are you talking about.

I administer 6 different forums just now and I check the new members every day and the mod is working perfect for me.

What version of SMF you have?

What version of the mod?

Have you installed lately any other new mod which could have interfered with this one?

El verdadero sabio es aquel que lo ve todo, lo estudia todo, lo analiza todo y molesta poco.
A true wise man is he who sees everything, studies everything, analyses everything and hardly ever annoys.

Dream of Omnimaga

#742
Version    2.3.7 of the mod. SMF 1.1.11. No other mods were installed in months.

Also when I go on the mod setting pages, it says "Your host couldn't make connection with the DB. Try again later. If this error continues see Support Topic and search Known Issues" in red. It did not happen until a week ago. Could this be a host-related issue? I have tried the "cURL fetch_web_data" mod and it would still not work either.

snoopy_virtual

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 08, 2010, 07:19:11 PM
Version    2.3.7 of the mod. SMF 1.1.11. No other mods were installed in months.

Also when I go on the mod setting pages, it says "Your host couldn't make connection with the DB. Try again later. If this error continues see Support Topic and search Known Issues" in red. It did not happen until a week ago. Could this be a host-related issue? I have tried the "cURL fetch_web_data" mod and it would still not work either.

OK, so your server cannot connect with SFS (StopForumSpam) server just now, but it was doing it OK a few weeks ago.

We also know that you have everything updated and you haven't got any new mods.

The only conclusion I can see is that something has changed inside your server, so it must be a host-related issue.

I would suggest you contact your host (preferably the server admin or somebody in the tech department) and ask them if they have changed lately anything inside the server configuration. More precisely ask them why cUrl is not working for you any more.

Anyway, I just remember somebody else (manicbe) had a similar problem a year and a half ago, and we sorted it then.

You can read the solution I suggested at the time here:

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=283309.msg1939541#msg1939541

Reading it you can get the general idea, but don't copy and paste those instructions, because they were for an old version.

For the actual version the instructions will be:

Find the file StopSpammer.php inside your Sources folder.

Around line 30 find the lines:


// Try to download.
require_once($sourcedir . '/Subs-Package.php');
$down_ok = fetch_web_data($remoteXML);


Replace them with this ones:


// Try to download.
//require_once($sourcedir . '/Subs-Package.php');
$down_ok = file_get_contents($remoteXML);


Around line 82 find the lines:


if ($report)
fetch_web_data('http://www.stopforumspam.com/add', 'username=' . $row['member_name'] . '&ip_addr=' . $row['member_ip'] . '&email=' . $row['email_address'] . '&api_key=' . (!empty($modSettings['stopspammer_api_key']) ? $modSettings['stopspammer_api_key'] : 'O0Ys3RHtDZPMfB'));


Replace them with this ones:


if ($report)
file_get_contents('http://www.stopforumspam.com/add', 'username=' . $row['member_name'] . '&ip_addr=' . $row['member_ip'] . '&email=' . $row['email_address'] . '&api_key=' . (!empty($modSettings['stopspammer_api_key']) ? $modSettings['stopspammer_api_key'] : 'O0Ys3RHtDZPMfB'));


Save the file and upload it.

As I said to manicbe then, if the function file_get_contents() doesn't work for you either let us know.

There are a lot of ways of getting content from a URL and maybe you can try some more until you find one that is working in your server.

El verdadero sabio es aquel que lo ve todo, lo estudia todo, lo analiza todo y molesta poco.
A true wise man is he who sees everything, studies everything, analyses everything and hardly ever annoys.

wlchase

I do the SysAdmin side for our forum, not the day-to-day stuff, so it would be helpful if, when an account needs approval, an email or PM could be sent to those doing the admin side so it wouldn't get overlooked.

In any case, thanks for another tool to fight the rise of spam!

Bill (http://www.czforumsite.info  System Admin)
Bill http://www.czfirearms.us  SysAdmin

Dream of Omnimaga

Sadly, I tried changing the code as you said, and no luck. This time, the Registration settings page just simply won't respond at all.

If you have another alternative let me know. Thanks for your help.

That said, I may be switching hosting soon, though, because my host is getting crappier and crappier it seems. (1and1)

snoopy_virtual

Quote from: wlchase on September 10, 2010, 10:39:49 AM
I do the SysAdmin side for our forum, not the day-to-day stuff, so it would be helpful if, when an account needs approval, an email or PM could be sent to those doing the admin side so it wouldn't get overlooked.

In any case, thanks for another tool to fight the rise of spam!

Bill (http://www.czforumsite.info  System Admin)

I don't really understand what you mean.

SMF already has an option to send an email to the admins every time a new member joins the forum, and I have this option ON in all my forums.

"Admin" => "Members" => "Registration" => "Settings" => "Notify administrators when a new member joins:"

Remember (as we have discussed here many times) you are not supposed to check every day only the new members marked as "spammer, waiting for approval", but ALL the new members.

Maybe a malicious spammer robot could join your forum today and the mod check its data but there is no information in the DB, so the mod  let the spammer in. And maybe you check again this new member a few hours later and somebody has already recognized it as a spammer and added its data to SFS (StopForumSpam) so this second time the mod recognizes it as a spammer and stops it.

So I don't see any point on adding an option to get an email only every time the mod stop an spammer.

I don't know if you understand what I'm trying to say. If not, let me know and I will try to explain it better

El verdadero sabio es aquel que lo ve todo, lo estudia todo, lo analiza todo y molesta poco.
A true wise man is he who sees everything, studies everything, analyses everything and hardly ever annoys.

snoopy_virtual

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 10, 2010, 05:52:00 PM
Sadly, I tried changing the code as you said, and no luck. This time, the Registration settings page just simply won't respond at all.

If you have another alternative let me know. Thanks for your help.

That said, I may be switching hosting soon, though, because my host is getting crappier and crappier it seems. (1and1)

Yes, there are a lot of different things you can try, but it depends on your server configuration, so I suppose it would be a lot quicker if we talk about it directly on-line, so I can see exactly your configuration and we can try a few things to sort it.

I normally have MSN, Yahoo and Skype open all day.

My ID on Yahoo and Skype is snoopy_virtual_studio
My ID on MSN is snoopy_virtual_studio [at] hotmail.com

Try to contact me through any of them (preferably Skype) (and preferably with a microphone, so we can talk about it) (I hate to write).

Also, if you are planning to change your hosting company contact me before you do anything. I work myself for a hosting company and can find you a good server at a reasonable price.

El verdadero sabio es aquel que lo ve todo, lo estudia todo, lo analiza todo y molesta poco.
A true wise man is he who sees everything, studies everything, analyses everything and hardly ever annoys.

Wally.

I tried to install this mod and got a "Undefined index: package_upload_error_failure" error. So I re-downloaded the file and tried again still no luck. Can anyone offer some advice on how to resolve this?

snoopy_virtual

Quote from: WallyNet on September 16, 2010, 11:52:51 PM
I tried to install this mod and got a "Undefined index: package_upload_error_failure" error. So I re-downloaded the file and tried again still no luck. Can anyone offer some advice on how to resolve this?

What version of SMF you have?

What version of the mod are you trying to install?

What other mods do you have installed on your forum?

El verdadero sabio es aquel que lo ve todo, lo estudia todo, lo analiza todo y molesta poco.
A true wise man is he who sees everything, studies everything, analyses everything and hardly ever annoys.

snoopy_virtual

Quote from: snoopy_virtual on September 17, 2010, 07:18:23 AM
Quote from: WallyNet on September 16, 2010, 11:52:51 PM
I tried to install this mod and got a "Undefined index: package_upload_error_failure" error. So I re-downloaded the file and tried again still no luck. Can anyone offer some advice on how to resolve this?

What version of SMF you have?

What version of the mod are you trying to install?

What other mods do you have installed on your forum?

OK, I have been checking your forum http://www.wallynet.org

I suppose that's the one with the problem. Am I right?

As far as I can see you use SMF 2.0 RC3 and I suppose you are trying to install StopSpammer version 2.3.7 (the latest one). Is this right?

Also as far as I can see you have these mods:

-Images On Board
-Users Online Today
-Simple Portal
-SMF Arcade
-Aeva Media
-Arcade Skin 2.5
-Country Flags
-Default Avatar

Did I miss any other mods ?

As far as I know, none of these ones interfere with the installation of StopSpammer and anyway the error you reported: package_upload_error_failure sounds more like a mistake in your SMF installation.

Answer my questions and we will try to sort the problem.

Alternatively, contact me through any messenger and we will talk about it.

El verdadero sabio es aquel que lo ve todo, lo estudia todo, lo analiza todo y molesta poco.
A true wise man is he who sees everything, studies everything, analyses everything and hardly ever annoys.

Wally.

Oops, sorry I forgot to send version details. You are correct it is WallyNet, my SMF version is 2.0 RC3 and Stop Spammer is version 2.3.7

The Mods include: Images On Board, Users Online Today, SimplePortal, SMF Arcade, More Spiders, Dice Roller BBcode, Aeva Media, Arcade Skin 2.5 RC1, Spoiler Tag, Spiders Don't Increase Topic Views, Country Flags, Default Avatar

Thanks in advance for the help.

snoopy_virtual

I don't think any of those other mods can interfere with the installation of StopSpammer either. (No 100% sure, but I suppose we can forget this possibility unless any of the mods gurus read this and tell us something different).

So the only possibilities I can see just now are, either a fault in your SMF installation or a temporary fault in the connexion from your computer to your server while you are trying to upload the package.

We should consider there is no fault in your SMF installation, or you would have seen more errors when installing other mods. (Again no 100% sure but suppose we can forget about it for the moment).

So the only likely possibility left is a temporary fault in the connexion between your computer and your server.

To check if that's the problem try to upload again the package a few times every half hour or so and see if you get always the same error.

Or/and try to upload any other package using the same "Package manager" and check if you get the same error.

I suppose you are using the "Official SMF Package manager" to install all your mods. If not (or if you don't know what is that) let me know.

Anyway, I will like to see the error while you are doing it, so I see the full process with more detail. Maybe that way I will be able to detect something else we are missing here. Can you contact me through any messenger?

El verdadero sabio es aquel que lo ve todo, lo estudia todo, lo analiza todo y molesta poco.
A true wise man is he who sees everything, studies everything, analyses everything and hardly ever annoys.

Wally.

After reading your post the server connection issue sounded like the most likely culprit so I went back to my system and attempted the upload again. This time it uploaded without a hitch. I think you were correct that it was a temporary fault in the connection between my system and the server.

Very strange, I haven't seen that happen before and I gather that it isn't common; because before posting this issue I searched the forum for that error message and I only got 1 hit and it was for an unrelated issue.

snoopy_virtual

Quote from: WallyNet on September 17, 2010, 10:18:08 AM
After reading your post the server connection issue sounded like the most likely culprit so I went back to my system and attempted the upload again. This time it uploaded without a hitch. I think you were correct that it was a temporary fault in the connection between my system and the server.

Glad to hear the problem is sorted. Let me know if you get any more troubles with the mod.

Quote from: WallyNet on September 17, 2010, 10:18:08 AM
Very strange, I haven't seen that happen before and I gather that it isn't common; because before posting this issue I searched the forum for that error message and I only got 1 hit and it was for an unrelated issue.

I had never seen this concrete error before, but I have seen other temporary connexion problems every now and then.

You have never played a coop game through the net?  ;)

El verdadero sabio es aquel que lo ve todo, lo estudia todo, lo analiza todo y molesta poco.
A true wise man is he who sees everything, studies everything, analyses everything and hardly ever annoys.

ZBWDO

Hi -- I have been getting absolutely inundated with spambots over the past week.  This tool has made dealing with them a little easier and slightly more effective, but I'd like to suggest a configurable set of options that could be added.  I think of this almost like either an a la carte menu of options we could select, or a 1-10 type of scenario-based option, where option 1 is least restrictive and option 10 is most restrictive. 

Here's what I really wish this mod would do for me:

Allow me to select options, when the mod recognizes a username, IP, or email that exists in the stopforumspam database, to:

[ ] Add the username, IP, hostname, and/or email address to my forum's ban list
[ ] Report the username, IP, hostname, and email address to hxxp:stopforumspam.com [nonactive]
[ ] Delete the account

If it were me, I would select all 3 options.  For example, this morning I had 6 more spambot registrations.  Because I cannot do these options in bulk (I can only add the bans to my forum registration-by-registration), I am doing them all by hand.

Alternatively, the tool could add these to the "With Selected:" dropdown menu (Ban, Report, Reject/Delete)

Is this something the developers would consider using?  This, right here, would save me at least one whole hour per day!!!

Thank you!

DarioBros

#756
Thank you for the MOD

Here's the complete Italian translation:

// MOD Stop Spammer - Italian Translation
$txt['stopspammer_error'] = 'Errore con il DB anti SPAM. Connessione fallita.<br />
Per favore, riprova più tardi o contatta il webmaster';
$txt['stopspammer_count'] = 'Spammer sono stati bloccati fino ad oggi';
$txt['stopspammer_title'] = 'Cerca ulteriori informazioni in `Stop Forum Spam`';

$txt['stopspammer_enable'] = 'Abilita/Disabilita la MOD Stop Spammer';
$txt['stopspammer_show01'] = 'Mostra il link "Ulteriori Informazioni" per tutti i Membri';
$txt['stopspammer_show01_sub'] = 'Puoi controllare qualsiasi membro in qualsiasi momento con un semplice click';

$txt['stopspammer_faildb'] = 'Se la connessione fallisce con il DB anti SPAM...';
$txt['stopspammer_fail01'] = 'Mostra l\'errore e interrompi la registrazione';
$txt['stopspammer_fail02'] = 'Permetti l\'immediata registrazione';
$txt['stopspammer_fail03'] = 'Approvazione  e mostra l\'icona per il controllo';
$txt['stopspammer_faildb1_sub'] = 'Il tuo host può stabilire connessioni remote con il DB';
$txt['stopspammer_faildb2_sub'] = 'Il tuo host non è stato in grado di stabilire connessioni remote con il DB, riprova più tardi<br />
Se continua, guarda il topic di supporto e cerca ';
$txt['stopspammer_not_translate'] = '<a href="http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=283309.new#post_issues"><span class="error"><b>Bug conosciuti</b></span></a>';

$txt['stopspammer_leyd01'] = 'Non Spammer: questo dato non era nel DB. Puoi però verificare';
$txt['stopspammer_leyd02'] = 'Sospetto: non è stato possibile controllare questo membro. Controlla ora';
$txt['stopspammer_leyd03'] = 'Spammer: vedi ulteriori informazioni sull\'attività di questo spammer';

$txt['stopspammer_profilecheck'] = 'Controlla questo utente';
$txt['stopspammer_limitexceded'] = 'Hai superato il limite di ricerca (5000 API queries al giorno).<br />Devi aspettare fino a domani per cercare nuovamente.';

$txt['in_stop_forum_spam'] = 'Nel sito web Stop Forum Spam:';
$txt['spammers_checks'] = 'Controlla questi membri';
$txt['spammers_report'] = 'Segnala questi membri';
$txt['confirm_spammers_checks'] = 'Sei sicuro di voler controllare i membri selezionati?';
$txt['confirm_spammers_report'] = 'Sei sicuro di voler segnalare i membri selezionati?\n\nConsidera che quando segnali un membro a SFS, egli è marcato come spammer in tutto il mondo\ne non sarà abilitato a usare qualsiasi forum connesso a SFS in tutto il mondo.\n\n Segnalali solo se sei completamente sicuro che sono spammer e, se per caso commetti un errore,\navverti il prima possibile il creatore della mod per correggere l\'errore nel database di SFS.';

$txt['stopspammer_api_key'] = 'La tua API key';
$txt['stopspammer_api_key_sub'] = 'Se vuoi usare una tua API key vai prima su <a href="http://www.stopforumspam.com/signup" target="_blank">www.stopforumspam.com</a> per registrarti e scrivila qui. Se non ne hai una lascia il campo bianco e la mod userà la API key di default.';

$txt['stopspammer_check_sub1'] = '<br />Se MOD Stop Spammer è attiva, ogni volta che controlliamo un utente:';
$txt['stopspammer_check_name'] = 'Controlla i loro username';
$txt['stopspammer_check_mail'] = 'Controlla le loro email';
$txt['stopspammer_check_ip'] = 'Controlla i loro IP';
$txt['stopspammer_check_sub2'] = 'Di default, ogni volta che controlli un utente con MOD Stop Spammer, questa verificherà i loro username, email and IP. Se trovi troppi falsi positivi per colpa degli username, puoi disattivare tale funzione. Non ti consigliamo di disabilitare le altre 2 opzioni (controllare email e IP) a meno che tu non sappia cosa stai facendo.';

snoopy_virtual

Quote from: ZBWDO on September 23, 2010, 09:27:29 AM
...
Allow me to select options, when the mod recognizes a username, IP, or email that exists in the stopforumspam database, to:

[ ] Add the username, IP, hostname, and/or email address to my forum's ban list
[ ] Report the username, IP, hostname, and email address to stopforumspam.com
[ ] Delete the account
...


I don't know if I have understood you properly.

Do you mean you want the mod to do this kind of actions automatically every time some data is found in the spammers database?

I f that's what you mean, it would be very dangerous, because still there are some "false positives" every now and then, so you could be deleting real "legal" users (not spammers).

Just in case somebody doesn't understand what I'm talking about, we call a "false positive" when the mod recognizes a new member as spammer but, after some investigation, you find out this one is not a spammer at all.

I'm not going to repeat here again all the possibilities and the reasons why some times we get "false positives", because we have discussed them here in this thread a lot of times.

Ideally the mod shouldn't do this kind of mistakes never and (if you read the full thread here) you can see, almost all the updates we have done to the mod since the first version, we have been trying to make this spammers recognizing system as perfect as possible, but unfortunately it's not 100% perfect yet and it still has some "false positives" every now and then.

So I think we have no other option but to check all the members recognized as spammers by the mod one by one to be sure they are really spammers.

=====================

Quote from: ZBWDO on September 23, 2010, 09:27:29 AM
...
Alternatively, the tool could add these to the "With Selected:" dropdown menu (Ban, Report, Reject/Delete)
...

I think this is already done.

I mean, it's not exactly in the dropdown menu, but next to it.

You can select as many members as you want and check them in stopforumspam database, report them or delete them.

The only new thing I see you are asking is to add also another button (or similar) to add selected members to your forum's ban list.

I have thought of doing this long time ago, but since I finished my other mod httpBL I stopped using a manual ban list.

With mod httpBL working on your forum there is no need to have a ban list. The bad guys ban themselves automatically and you don't need to keep banning them manually.

If you don't have this other mod you can find it here:

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2155

=====================

Again, as I said at the beginning, I don't know if I understood you properly.

If I didn't please forgive me and correct me.

El verdadero sabio es aquel que lo ve todo, lo estudia todo, lo analiza todo y molesta poco.
A true wise man is he who sees everything, studies everything, analyses everything and hardly ever annoys.

snoopy_virtual

Quote from: DarioBros on September 24, 2010, 05:51:22 AM
...
Here's the complete Italian translation:
...

Graze mille DarioBros. I will add it to the "full language package" as soon as I have some time.

El verdadero sabio es aquel que lo ve todo, lo estudia todo, lo analiza todo y molesta poco.
A true wise man is he who sees everything, studies everything, analyses everything and hardly ever annoys.

ZBWDO

Thanks, Snoopy.  Yes, you understood correctly == in my case, an Admin adds forum members one by one when there is a new user in our group -- approximately 98% of the users fall into this category.  Approximately 2% of the users self-register, try us out, and then become full members (or not) after a few days.  So the false positives wouid probably effect me one in a million times. 

I've just read through the documentation on the other mod, and really think this would be a very useful tool, also.  I'll be installing that one next!

Thank you!

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