stopping the spammers

Handruin said:
If we allow for editing, then there's the risk that the seller can change the information that was advertised and the accountability is thrown off. Has that ever been an issue in other forums?
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Do you really think that's a problem with the relatively close knit group of people we have here, and the few things that are even listed FS here?
 
In other forums the previous versions of edited messages are typically available through a link so that the interested viewer san see what changes were made. It is a fair compromise.
 
Yep, I don't know what happened, but I suspect someone started up a new spam server or something. 95% of the accounts that have joined get deleted. The Poland (.pl) TLD is about to get a complete block with regards to email address signups.
 
You must be doing something or they are not posting. Anyway there is no nasty spam yet. :)
 
Most of them sign up and put URLs linking to their crap websites in their profile and never do anything else. The other ones post threads that get put automatically into a moderated state that requires manual approval when they have URLs in their post. Most spammers do this, and they won't get through until after they have a certain number of posts that have been approved before letting posts with URLs in them. The crap still happens, you just see less of it now.
 
I'm looking through the log file which records the attempts of account registration and I can't believe how many attempts to create accounts are rejected.

Between:
2011-02-13 16:21:55 & 2011-02-14 11:26:44 there are 200 attempts to register accounts from spammers. The plug-in I'm using rejects them based on look-ups from multiple sources. Of the 200, 3-4 accounts got registered and one made a post that was automatically moderated due to the content. The other accounts register and put spam links in their profile.

They are persistent fucks.

Also, since I've implemented this, there are 17,197 total log entries (each log entry is an attempt to register an account). I started using this on 2010-11-07 09:08:16...
 
I wasn't posting in hopes for thanks (but thank you for saying them), I'm just overwhelmed sometimes with dealing with those dickheads. We're a small forum...how do other larger forums handle this crap?
 
Jeebus, that's enough to make anyone paranoid.

Doug, thanks for your efforts. Just remember, we're all firmly 20 feet behind you. ;)
 
Handruin said:
I'm just overwhelmed sometimes with dealing with those dickheads.
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The problem is, we're not dealing with dickheads. We're dealing with their computers. And, in reality, it seems, our computers are dealing with them, not us.

It's an arms race for a proxy war.
 
Oh I get it now. Dunny is a slang word for toilet in Australia. They've yet to do anything spam-related so you had me confused with your comment in this thread which is related to spammers.
 
It is a fairly safe bet even without being a Precog. :-) 99% of the new registrations end up being douche-bag spammers.
 
If you are not a moderator, you didn't see it for the automated anti-spam is blocking it. But it is a lot and all from one person. I had already PM'ed Handruin asking to have him banned.
 
P5-133XL said:
If you are not a moderator, you didn't see it for the automated anti-spam is blocking it. But it is a lot and all from one person. I had already PM'ed Handruin asking to have him banned.
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Oh, now I see some new users with goofy letters for names. :(
 
Now the spammers are attacking the PMs. It's some east Asian script I don't understand. :(
 
Thanks. What makes no sense is the foreign language. Do they think people on a US website will understand it?
 
I received the SPAM email as well. Twice. I didn't click the link that had a .VN domain. Vietnamese?
 
I've added a lot more restrictions to the private messaging for members who have recently signed up and also members who are in a group designed to allow for limited behavior until they've vetted themselves as a real person. I hope this helps mitigate this problem.
 
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