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Spam attack

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Re: Spam attack

Postby DELTA » Wed Apr 15, 2009 7:23 am

It's my regretfull duty to inform you all that the spam had been indexed by google, so the spam bot owners are now gaining higher PR at flightgears expense :(
Tower: "Delta , you have traffic at 10 o'clock, 6 miles!"
Delta : "Give us another hint! I have a digital watch!"
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Re: Spam attack

Postby redneck » Wed Apr 15, 2009 8:10 am

PR? :?
Btw, there's now more than 600 spam topics.
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Re: Spam attack

Postby DELTA » Wed Apr 15, 2009 10:23 am

PR = Page rank, the numbers on the bottom of google search if your on the first page as the first result your PR is 10, etc
Tower: "Delta , you have traffic at 10 o'clock, 6 miles!"
Delta : "Give us another hint! I have a digital watch!"
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Re: Spam attack

Postby Hello » Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:27 am

bisutti wrote:Almost the entire aircraft modeling forum is filled with spam topics!

Image


Stories and Humor section looks the same! :shock: :evil:
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Re: Spam attack

Postby YourDailyTsunami » Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:35 pm

That looks like a lot of work for the mods...
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Re: Spam attack

Postby Gijs » Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:46 pm

There are mods availble to strengten a forums defence system. I think it's time to take a look at some of these...
You won't solve this by adding another moderator.

DELTA wrote:has to delete these, it's going to take forever

The admin can remove users and all of their posts in one single click. So to remove the spam only takes five clicks ;)
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Re: Spam attack

Postby redneck » Wed Apr 15, 2009 1:00 pm

I did another search to see how much spam has plagued the forum. The results:
The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: prescription.
You must specify at least one word to search for. Each word must consist of at least 3 characters and must not contain more than 14 characters excluding wildcards.

My last check was about 5 hours ago, and it had just surpassed 600 hits. Now, I can only guess that it's probably over 1000....
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Re: Spam attack

Postby 2011futuremarine » Wed Apr 15, 2009 2:47 pm

Everytime I look at "who is online" those bots are always posting new messages... :shock:
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Re: Spam attack

Postby stuart » Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:12 pm

Hi Guys,

I've managed to delete all the spam messages (I think).

Unfortunately as a moderator I had to remove each message, rather than just deleting the users. It's possible that some real messages got caught up and deleted too - sorry.

I'll be checking with Curt whether he changed anything when adding the new sub-forum.

Thanks very much for those that PM'd me - otherwise I wouldn't have noticed for a day or so.

-Stuart
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Re: Spam attack

Postby Gijs » Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:17 pm

Thanks for deleting them Stuart. It was/is really annoying.
stuart wrote:I'll be checking with Curt whether he changed anything when adding the new sub-forum.

Please ask him to remove the accounts aswell. They keep on posting.
And ask if he can add some mor ways to defend our forum against spam. There are a lot of mods available...
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Re: Spam attack

Postby Hooray » Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:25 pm

Gijs wrote:And ask if he can add some mor ways to defend our forum against spam. There are a lot of mods available...


As I said in the other thread, this problem isn't about having enough or more moderators, it is about fixing the phpBB vulernability, so that automated scripts may no longer as easily register new accounts and post spam.

Similarly, having to approve new accounts is also a bad idea, due to the workload caused by this.
Just change the scripts, so that standard variable names can no longer be used.
Last edited by Hooray on Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Spam attack

Postby Gijs » Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:27 pm

Hooray wrote:
Gijs wrote:There are a lot of mods available...
this problem isn't about having enough or more moderators,

Ah, with mod I meant modifications, not moderators. Sorry for the inconvience :p
I posted earlier in this thread that our forum should keep spam out instead of removing it.
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Re: Spam attack

Postby stuart » Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:30 pm

Looks like I spoke too soon - the spam attack is continuing.

Unfortunately I don't have the permissions to remove users, or block IP addresses, so there's a limit to what I can do.

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Re: Spam attack

Postby Natovr » Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:31 pm

stuart wrote:Looks like I spoke too soon - the spam attack is continuing.

Unfortunately I don't have the permissions to remove users, or block IP addresses, so there's a limit to what I can do.

-Stuart

With all due respect, that is stupid. I think all mods should be able to remove users and to on o_O
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Re: Spam attack

Postby gorilla » Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:44 pm

stuart wrote:Looks like I spoke too soon - the spam attack is continuing.

Unfortunately I don't have the permissions to remove users, or block IP addresses, so there's a limit to what I can do.



Hi Stuart,

I have noticed that the spam is being added to "Stories and Humour" Forum. :evil:

This spam problem is looking like a firestorm and will require some higher level intervention such as modifying the behaviour of this phpBB installation. Otherwise you are continually squirting water on the spot fires.

A short term solution could be to disable the spammy users.

I appreciate the effort you are putting in.
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