CoN 25th Anniversary: 1997-2022
Spam Users

Posted: 9th January 2011 00:15

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Hopefully, most of you haven't noticed the mass numbers of spam-posting users we've had this week. We're pretty good about catching them quickly when they post. However, it appears that since the start of the new year that there has been a steep rise in human spammers, low-paid people in countries known for spam who can recognize English letters like in our captcha, and bypass it. This isn't happening just here, a Google search will show you lots of other people complaining since last month.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that if you've been bothered by spam threads, we are working on it. Temporarily, we've turned on admin validation so that each new signup has to be approved by one of our three forum admins before they can post. I'm also developing another layer of protection in the registration flow that will hopefully block more of these users, after which I will restore the registration flow back to normal.

I'll post again here when I have the new stuff implemented.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

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Post #192019
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Posted: 9th January 2011 00:38

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SOLDIER
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I haven't save for the last time you've mentioned it in chat but I haven't been here much to notice so it may not count for much. At any rate I find it interesting that there's been a rise of human spammers. I wonder why. Could it be that the economy sunk just enough that people are willing to stoop mildly lower for an extra buck or two on the side? If that's the case I'd almost pity the blokes, were it not for the fact that CoN's such a beautiful thing to ruin in any case.

Also I'm curious as to how these new things you'll implement even could work out, if they're human spammers. Seems to me like they'd be able to defeat most automations, except maybe a lockout timer due to the sole facts of inefficiency and disinterest. Or are they like, registering to allow something like a floodbot to do its work or something?

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Post #192020
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Posted: 9th January 2011 00:59

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Quote
low-paid people in countries known for spam who can recognize English letters like in our captcha


I guess I wasn't quite clear there - most of these countries, the people who actually KNOW English are not doing the work. These are poor people, typically, and they're not writing anything. They know only to click a mouse, and to match patterns on their screen with those on their keyboards. These are people whose economy has always been bad - it's not stooping. Check out http://www.blogherald.com/2010/04/23/human...and-trackbacks/ for more. The real reason that this industry has risen, though, is that site owners as a whole have gotten so good at stopping automated spam.

That being said, the solution is largely to make the registration include other verification that people who do not speak English and might not know the site's subject matter could not possibly pass. The only way to defeat spam is to continue to try to make it expensive enough to spam sites that they just don't try any more.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?
Post #192021
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Posted: 9th January 2011 01:43

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Lucky <3
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To jump on, thanks for using the Report Post function when you do see these. We're not always the first ones to catch these posts and that's absolutely the best way to bring our attentions to it. Several of you have done this for us and it's really helped us a lot.

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Post #192022
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Posted: 9th January 2011 03:19

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OK, the new layer has been installed. I'm going to let it run overnight and hope for the best, my apologies if some spammers get through before I come back tomorrow. smile.gif

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?
Post #192028
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Posted: 9th January 2011 09:08

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A suggestion for something relevant to the forum--perhaps you could include naming a randomly-pictured playable FFVI character as an extra captcha. tongue.gif

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 9th January 2011 09:08

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Post #192040
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Posted: 9th January 2011 10:39

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Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 9th January 2011 10:08)
A suggestion for something relevant to the forum--perhaps you could include naming a randomly-pictured playable FFVI character as an extra captcha. tongue.gif

That worked pretty well on a Phoenix Wright forum I go to, actually.

It's a picture of a random character, and then it asks what her/his name is.
Post #192044
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Posted: 9th January 2011 14:38

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That's actually quite similar to what we did, and we haven't had a spam user successfully sign up since I did it. To use images would have taken me far longer to develop, so I went with an off-the-shelf solution with customized questions and answers so that I could get the development done immediately.

Thanks for the feedback.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?
Post #192049
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Posted: 19th January 2011 18:52

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suggestion:what about putting a time limit on posts? like:a 5 or 10 minute timer per post.


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Posted: 19th January 2011 19:00

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That would do nothing to stop someone who wants to spam the site - most spam users only ever post once anyway.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?
Post #192341
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