News:

Want to get involved in developing SMF, then why not lend a hand on our github!

Main Menu

Stop Spammer

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

Previous topic - Next topic

snoopy_virtual

Quote from: androgyn3 on December 14, 2010, 11:56:41 AM
Hi M-DVD,

This is the French Translation for Stop Spammer mod

Hi androgyn3.

Thanks for your collaboration. Anyway, M-DVD left SMF more than a year ago, and I have been on my own here working on this mod since.  ;D

Quote from: androgyn3 on December 14, 2010, 11:56:41 AM
(I hope there are no probleme with the french accentuated character like é ?)

I have exactly the same problem translating SMF to Spanish, as we also have a lot of accentuated characters, so I know what you mean.

The solution (as you could see if you had joined the SMF translators team and had access to our private sub-forum) is to separate every language in 2 different files. Write them with the accents in their places (é instead of é) but saving one as UTF-8 and the other one in the specific ISO set for every language. For example for French and Spanish that second one should be ISO-8859-1 (or even better ISO-8859-15 to include as well the € sign).

So, for the next version of the mod, I am going to change completely the way the "full language pack" is done. Anyway I have in my "list of things to do urgently" a lot of things to do first, so it will take me a while until I arrive to that.  ;)

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: Eudemon369 on December 16, 2010, 12:10:42 AM
where does this number come from, see attachment

the mod only blocks spammer from passing registration right
but starting from the day i started to use this mod, there is only 200 spammers blocked from registration at most
it's a huge different from that number

Yes, there is really a big difference between 200 and 3700. I don't understand it. In all my forums that number has always been accurate.

Didn't you notice it before? Has it happen just suddenly? You don't remember being doing something different with your forum when that happened?

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: Darren996 on December 16, 2010, 07:07:11 AM
Hi Snoopy!

Awesome mod!  ...

Thanks,
Darren

You are very welcome.

Quote from: Darren996 on December 16, 2010, 07:07:11 AM
I was wondering if there was an option or a mod somewhere to automatically report, ban and delete?  I've been poking around but haven't found much.

We have talked about that a lot of times. For example you can find some info here:

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=283309.msg2795650#msg2795650
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=283309.msg2824751#msg2824751

Not only that 2, but also the posts just before and after both of them, with all the talk we did about the subject at the moment.

Also you can search the thread for all the times we have talked here about the problem with the "false positives". (There are lots of examples, so I cannot give you a full list.)

If after reading all that you still don't see it clear, let me know and I will try to explain it again.

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.

Wizzlefits

Quote
Yes, there is really a big difference between 200 and 3700. I don't understand it. In all my forums that number has always been accurate.

Same here, one site says 3802 but should be over 9000, another site says 696 but should be more like 414.
Quote
You don't remember being doing something different with your forum when that happened?
LOL!
Besides breaking several time a week? No, not really.
To be honest, I never really paid much attention to that number.

busterone

#944
On the differing numbers issue-
That number includes all the registration attempts that were stopped automatically, and did not require admin approval/disapproval.  It is hard to accurately know how many that really is. I see as many as a dozen different ips "registering for an account" simultaneously sometimes.  For kicks, I check their IP on the SFS site manually and see that they are indeed spammers. They get rejected automatically as the mod should do, and I never see them in the awaiting approval queue.
I only get about a dozen per week that need admin attention.

For the posters that feel that the number showing on their forum is too high, How do you calculate what you think the real number should be? One would have to be online 24/7 and constantly monitor the who's online list to know how many registration attempts there actually are.

I personally do not think the numbers are inflated myself.

Also, I have seen the same IP attempting to register again multiple times over several days. They get rejected, but come back and try again multiple times, only to be rejected multiple times, increasing the spammer count on each attempt.

jrstark

I just installed this mod.  I see others talking about checking their entire member list, but I can't find how to do this.

Also, I have probable spammers in my awaiting approval list, and their email and/or IP are in the Stopforumspam database, but the names that were in prior to installing this mod have the blue search icon.  New signups have red, but none of the ones from before I installed.

I have my own API in the options, but do not see how to report spammers.  How do I turn this on?

Thanks!

Wizzlefits

@jrstark
The FAQ should answer your questions. ;)

Eudemon

#947
Quote from: snoopy_virtual on December 16, 2010, 07:54:57 AM
Quote from: Eudemon369 on December 16, 2010, 12:10:42 AM
where does this number come from, see attachment

the mod only blocks spammer from passing registration right
but starting from the day i started to use this mod, there is only 200 spammers blocked from registration at most
it's a huge different from that number

Yes, there is really a big difference between 200 and 3700. I don't understand it. In all my forums that number has always been accurate.

Didn't you notice it before? Has it happen just suddenly? You don't remember being doing something different with your forum when that happened?

it's been like that since i installed the mod
what should i do?
that number keeps raising like 400 a day

------------update
i reinstalled the mod, now waiting to see what will happen

-----------update 2
the number is still not right
it's at 4200 right now
hmm, what should i do?

SD-X

Quote from: V@no on December 13, 2010, 09:40:05 PM
Hello.
It's showing me "There are 15 members awaiting approval." but when I click the link, it says there is nobody to approve...The forum set to user activation.
I believe this happened after I reinstall the mod. How can I clear the count?

Thank you.
That bug is back. Can't get rid of it.

snoopy_virtual

Quote from: Eudemon369 on December 16, 2010, 03:13:07 PM
hmm, what should i do?

How many anti-spam mods do you have and which ones?

Also: What version of SMF do you use and what version of mod Stop-Spammer do you have?

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.

Eudemon

#950
Quote from: snoopy_virtual on December 17, 2010, 07:20:18 PM
Quote from: Eudemon369 on December 16, 2010, 03:13:07 PM
hmm, what should i do?

How many anti-spam mods do you have and which ones?

Also: What version of SMF do you use and what version of mod Stop-Spammer do you have?

smf version 2.0 rc4
i only have one anti-spam mod
which is Stop Spammer      2.3.7

the mod doesn't support rc4, so i manually added 2.0rc4 in package-info
i installed with one error, but i manually edited the codes
hmm.. now im thinking could this be a compatibility issue?  ???

snoopy_virtual

No, it's not a compatibility issue.

The small error you had when installing the mod doesn't really affects the way the mod works. It's not important at all.

The problem is this mod (on its own) doesn't protect you completely. You should have at least also mod httpBL:

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

Also you should go to Admin => Configuration => Security and Moderation => Anti-Spam

Scroll down to "Verification Questions" and add at least one question and answer.

There are also a lot more anti-spam mods, but I haven't try them properly. Since I have these 2 mods and my "Verification Questions" activated in all my forums I haven't had any more problems with spammers.

I could tell you also how to reset the spammers count manually, so you could put it back to 0, but that won't sort your problem. If the number is growing so quickly it means there are a lot of robots trying to enter your forum. Resetting the counter won't stop them at all.

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.

Eudemon

i don't really have any big issues with spammers getting through registration

in my understanding is that stop spammers(this mod) turns spammer registrations into waiting approvals
so that number should be the number got turned into approvals
i just wonder why the number of spammers blocked is so much different than the approvals
or does the mod count robots also, even they don't tend to register?

sorry if i'm incorrect

and thanks for the tip

snoopy_virtual

The human spammers used to send spam ages ago. No-a-days they don't do it themselves. They create robots to do the job.

Spammer robots can send spam a thousand time faster than humans, so all the spammers you see in the forums just now are all robots.

A robot can try to register a 100 times in less than a minute. The mod should count only one of the attempts, but sometimes (if the robots are attacking really hard) the number grows wrongly (as it's your case now). That's why I said I think they are attacking you.

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.

Eudemon

woo i'm getting attacks? that doesn't sound good ???

i will use ur suggestions if this gets worse, thanks for your replies

busterone

Quote from: Eudemon369 on December 17, 2010, 08:40:52 PM
i don't really have any big issues with spammers getting through registration

in my understanding is that stop spammers(this mod) turns spammer registrations into waiting approvals
so that number should be the number got turned into approvals
i just wonder why the number of spammers blocked is so much different than the approvals

You must have missed my earlier post. The mod does more than turn registration attempts into approvals, it also outright automatically rejects a spammer if all the criteria are met. (IP, username, and email simultaneously) That rejection gets added to the count you are referring to. The total count should be higher than the number of registrations that have been added to the awaiting admin approval queue.    :)

Eudemon

QuoteYou must have missed my earlier post. The mod does more than turn registration attempts into approvals, it also outright automatically rejects a spammer if all the criteria are met. (IP, username, and email simultaneously) That rejection gets added to the count you are referring to. The total count should be higher than the number of registrations that have been added to the awaiting admin approval queue.    :)
oh, that makes sense  ;)
is it normal to have 4300 spammers blocked with only 200 added to approvals?

thx

busterone

Quite possible. I can only speak for my own forum, but I have caught the same ip attempting to register several times in one day, often several days in a row, only to be rejected each time. This is happening a lot lately.  I sometimes get bored and scout the who's online list, and check every IP that is registering at that time manually.  I started to see a pattern of the same ones returning almost every day.  I presume that each time this same person/bot returns to try again, the rejection is added to the count again as well.    :)

Eudemon

#958
ok, i feel much more comfortable now

thank you busterone and snoopy_virtual  :)

snoopy_virtual

#959
Quote from: busterone on December 17, 2010, 11:03:10 PM
You must have missed my earlier post. The mod does more than turn registration attempts into approvals, it also outright automatically rejects a spammer if all the criteria are met. (IP, username, and email simultaneously) That rejection gets added to the count you are referring to. The total count should be higher than the number of registrations that have been added to the awaiting admin approval queue.    :)

Sorry, but that's not at all the way M-DVD and me did this mod.

The way we did it, the mod is not supposed to turn registrations out automatically never. It doesn't matter what criteria is met or not.

When anybody try to register, the mod checks inside SFS database only the fields you have marked on your mod configuration (IP, username, and/or email). If any of them is found in the DB it leaves the user waiting for approval (and add +1 to the spammer's count). If there is no data about the fields you have marked it allows registration.

But it never turns out anybody automatically. It doesn't matter what.

So the way we did it (or we intended to do it) the counter should be accurate all the time. If it's not, there is something wrong in the code or something else is interfering with the counter (like for example another mod, or a robot trying to register too many times per second or something else).

In all my forums that counter has always been accurate and nobody ever told me they had seen something strange with it. That's the first time I see something like that happening, but apparently it's not only Eudemon who noticed it, because Wizzlefits said yesterday he had seen also that counter going rogue sometimes and today busterone is saying the same.

Of course that number is not really too important (it's just for your own information and doesn't interfere with the way the mod works) so I haven't really paid it too much heed. But I don't like when anything doesn't work exactly as it was supposed to work (it may be a sign of some mistake inside the code) so I should look into it a little more as soon as I have some spare time.

Quote from: busterone on December 17, 2010, 11:59:01 PM
... I have caught the same ip attempting to register several times in one day, often several days in a row, only to be rejected each time ...
... I presume that each time this same person/bot returns to try again ...

It is a bot for sure. Humans never do things so automatic (every day at the same time) and also they stop trying after a couple of times been rejected.

When something like that happens in any of my forums, usually the bot gets caught by my honey pot and after a day or 2, it cannot access at all any part of my forums.

But, if it's not attracted by my honey pot and I see it trying again after a couple of days, I go to Project Honey Pot's site and report it manually. That way I not only ban this bot from accessing all my forums, but also from all other web sites using httpBL software.

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

Sorry I mixed here things from 2 different mods, but the way I have done them they are supposed to work together always.

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.

Advertisement: