Topic: Why are we allowing these spammers?

[desray]

Any reason why certain supposedly harmless threads are locked? Is it because of spammers?

http://www.xtremeplace.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=154302.0
http://www.xtremeplace.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=155394.0

Sorry didn't read this...I have already unlock it. And no, it is not the doing of the Mods here.

[silencer13]

Sorry didn't read this...I have already unlock it. And no, it is not the doing of the Mods here.

Thanks for the hard work, desray. Really appreciate it.

You know, if you guys are swamped, you could always delegate the job of killing spammers to some of us.
I know some of us practically live on XP and will be happy to volunteer to keep the forums spammer-free.

[wizardofoz]

Thanks for the hard work, desray. Really appreciate it.

You know, if you guys are swamped, you could always delegate the job of killing spammers to some of us.
I know some of us practically live on XP and will be happy to volunteer to keep the forums spammer-free.

Offered a few times myself...never want to delegate

[Knight_Rider]

The russkies are back again...

They seems to be staying put but my post got deleted. 

[petetherock]

The spam bots are back again today ...

[petetherock]

There seems to be a recent influx of spam bot accounts...

[wizardofoz]

Seems the defenses are down...lots of wacky posts from newbies with odd names in the wrong forums


Maybe it's server updates time queks

[desray]

I have been trying my best everyday to remove these spambots. And frankly, I am exhausted.

[wizardofoz]

It's probably vulnerabilities in the smf application or database. These updates need to be kept on top of

[queks]

We are already with the latest forum software and all anti spam mechanism turn on. We still unable to block them totally. I agree that it maybe coming in from direct database attack or some 3rd parties integration or mod plugin.

[petetherock]

Big surge in Russian spamming recently..

[wizardofoz]

everyday new vulnerabilities are found...its a constant catch up game with developers having to patch then users having to update. sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

[queks]

just updated the forum with latest patches...Leap of faith. I patch it without testing. Cross my finger that everything works well.

[silencer13]

There is some Russian syndicate that is spamming all forums, they use some software to find forums, then they actually manually register an account to start spamming. I know because I manage a forum for a client and we've received an increased amount of fake registration attempts recently, and they are usually from .ru accounts.

Patching won't help. The trick is to make it more difficult for them to register and to start new threads.
You can start by having an email verification system for registration, so they need to receive a verification email and click the link before they can login.
Then for posting, just set a minimum number of posts before they can start a new thread, maybe they need 10 posts before they can start a new thread.
The first should be available as a free plugin for SMF, the 2nd should already be a feature.

This won't stop everything, of course, but it makes it more troublesome for them to spam.

[desray]

Almost 20% of my time spent on this forum is to rid spams...