Spammers

[SilentCal]

#48005 |

We know we have a severe problem and it is being worked on.

[SilentCal]

#55013

Again, I apoligize for all the spam. I believe the spammers have targeted 9/11 based sites and are ramping up their attacks this weekend because the site will garner traffic. Doing our best but it seems like if we knock one down, two more pop up in it’s place.

[sno_gabe]

#55014

Al Qaeda

[Chris]

#55015

I’ve changed the password to the database (to something extremely complicated) in case the spamming is coming from a bot that figured out our old password. Let’s hope that solves the issue, at least temporarily.

[tfr]

#55016

@Chris wrote:

I’ve changed the password to the database (to something extremely complicated) in case the spamming is coming from a bot that figured out our old password. Let’s hope that solves the issue, at least temporarily.

I run a PHPBB board as well, and I had to turn off registration completely. I would suggest you at least make it so the moderator has to approve people, and just delete all the ids that look like 35ki68dfl. I doubt you will nuke anyone legit.

[Chris]

#55017

Thanks Tom, I may just do that. I hate having people wait for me to approve them, but I’ve deleted at least 500 fake registrations in the last week so we may have to go that way.

[SilentCal]

#55018

I can help approve people if it goes through the squirrell file.

I say do whatever it takes, My spam-killer finger is getting a workout.

[Chris]

#55019

The only thing we really do when we require approval is move the problem. Instead of removing annoying email, we’re denying annoying registrations. But we can see how it works. I’d hate to have legitimate people waiting for us to approve them, we’d need to be online every day, which is tougher than you’d think! Let’s see how it works and we can go from there.

[MichaelJ]

#55020

The disadvantage to moderating signups is that it puts a large burden on a smaller number of people. However, the advantage is that one spammer signup can result in many posts, and the burden is still on those select few to disable that account.

[RichNH]

#55021

Well, whatever you do, it’s fine with me. You’re doing a great job!

[Chris]

#55022

I’ve reinstalled an add-on that I thought we had, but wasn’t working well. It turns out during the last upgrade I wrote over it. Now that it’s back up and running, we haven’t gotten a single bot (spammer) registration (three hours and counting).

[MichaelJ]

#55023

{like}

[Chris]

#55024

Six hours and not one spammer has been able to register. Thank goodness. I think we have the problem solved. We’ll still need to upgrade, but now we can do it at our pace.
:beer:

[Author]

Posts