Spam attack

[Lykke TheNun]

We are being attacked atm by a lot of spammers. Obviously it is happening to a lot of forums and not only ours (we have seen others reporting this abuse today as well).

The current spam types are not bots but often organized people being paid to promote their links on forums and sites. They even fill in the normal user forms like avatar names or society names just to make it look as if they are 'real users' of the forum.

But no worries, we are having the tools to remove them fast again and even remove some before they post.

If they are not removed right away - they will be shortly after posting.

We do not tolerate spammers on this forum and will block whatever we find

Thank you

 

[Nor Alien]

We are being attacked atm by a lot of spammers. Obviously it is happening to a lot of forums and not only ours (we have seen others reporting this abuse today as well).

The current spam types are not bots but often organized people being paid to promote their links on forums and sites. They even fill in the normal user forms like avatar names or society names just to make it look as if they are 'real users' of the forum.

But no worries, we are having the tools to remove them fast again and even remove some before they post.

If they are not removed right away - they will be shortly after posting.

We do not tolerate spammers on this forum and will block whatever we find

Thank you

Very nice!! I do have one question... do these tools cause the forum to run a bit slower.. I don't really mind because it is for a good cause... just more of a question to see if my IE9 is being dumb again!!

I think we need to celebrate spam!!

 

[Lykke TheNun]

No, the tool is me

 

[Nor Alien]

No, the tool is me

Ah so it's my IE9.. Thought so...

Ty for all your hard work and time..

 

[Lykke TheNun]

I might have found a small solution which will make it even more difficult for spammers to enter. Can't promise it will work though - but I hope it will slow them down at least It should work on new accounts. Unfortunately not on those already registering which will come back to spam later on (they register 1/2 or 1 day before they start spamming).

to all spammers and to all 'real' members =)

 

[Svarog]

Force them to answer a simple question while registering, something universal for all PPs, like what's the color of TT terminal, and limit those who don't know the answer because they are nasty stinking spammers haven't started playing yet to a subforum named "PWNED!" "Greetings" where we could laugh at them help them with the game

 

[Lykke TheNun]

I did already, Svarog - but thanks a lot. Does seem to have calmed it down though

 

[SocoJoe]

My first Post Since signing up, Lykke Great work, hope you nip it in the bud, I hate Spammers, just unwanted Clutter.. ;(

Sincerely: SocoArizonaJoe

 

[Lykke TheNun]

My first Post Since signing up, Lykke Great work, hope you nip it in the bud, I hate Spammers, just unwanted Clutter.. ;(

Sincerely: SocoArizonaJoe

Welcome Soco and thank you =)

Unfortunately my internet was down all day yesterday, so was a little nervous when I could go back in yesterday evening. Looked like we 'got them' though But yeah, I dislike spammers as well! Just happy we had a relatively 'light' attack. I read some forums had 1000 attacks per 5 minute

 

[Iphigia]

Welcome Soco and thank you =)

Unfortunately my internet was down all day yesterday, so was a little nervous when I could go back in yesterday evening. Looked like we 'got them' though But yeah, I dislike spammers as well! Just happy we had a relatively 'light' attack. I read some forums had 1000 attacks per 5 minute

Unfortunately, the real trouble will begin after full launch. When Cyrene has gone fully live and advertisements begin to circulate it will attract more and more spammers...

 

[Lykke TheNun]

Unfortunately, the real trouble will begin after full launch. When Cyrene has gone fully live and advertisements begin to circulate it will attract more and more spammers...

We have done what we could at this moment - including installing a special feature in the back-end - and so far it seems to work.

I would rather be optimistic and say we 'got them' and then look forward than to expect a 'worse case scenario'

And we have our eyes on the forum many many times a day too - not to forget that you can all always use the Report button in the posts, in case there's something we miss. That is a big help for us too

Thank you

 

[SocoJoe]

Thanks Lykke for the Great Welcome message.
Feels pretty go to actually have a response from someone real, As for the spam issues, If I see anything that seems anywhere close to spam'n, I will definately hit the report button..

 

[Fred]

I think Cyrene Forum has an quite unsecure "Sign on" (Registraion) process. Thats the reason you may get hit hard by spamers. I did alot of webpages and forums in the past and at least you should use CAPTCHA (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA). As I recall, there was no Captcha sign up as I registered to the site. Could be wrong now.

When the site gets bigger it is strongly recommended your registration process runs via https logins. Thats even more secure.

I not want to dig into the forum code now but I suppose you use a standard forum. Most good forum makers (or others, when the forum software is well known) offer tons of addons (such as Captcha) to get it up and runing with your forum.

Good luck

PS: Ah, you use XeForo. Ah well - here we go: http://xenforo.com/help/captcha/
Maybe that helps

 

[Kri]

Also what works like a charm is to use Akismet ( http://akismet.com/ ) in a way that scans each post before accepting it.

 

[Tengu Yama Mono]

Realy? spam? wow? how about PCF? other foras? Do they experience the same problem and what did/do they do about it?

 

[dale johnson]

Hey Lykke, I found that there seems to be actual people behind the attack not just computers. they are getting past anything i put up to stop them.

soooooooooooo
what i have done is make the registration deactivated and make it so i get an email each registration. then i email the person/hack/annoyance back askign them to confirm they are real. And so far only the real people have ever emailed me back.

so although its annoying and delays signing up for the forum. it has fixed the problem 100% for me. and i find it easier to deal with the registration then delete all these damn spam messages.

Good luck!

 

[dale johnson]

I think Cyrene Forum has an quite unsecure "Sign on" (Registraion) process. Thats the reason you may get hit hard by spamers. I did alot of webpages and forums in the past and at least you should use CAPTCHA (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA). As I recall, there was no Captcha sign up as I registered to the site. Could be wrong now.

CAPTCHA is so 2010 I have found it does nothing anymore but annoy the real humans.

 

[Lykke TheNun]

Hi all - thank you for the suggestions to help out =)

We did however manage to ''keep down' the 'intruders' to a minimum where it's acceptable and can be removed again easily.

To the question about forum attacks: Yes, it can be all types of forums - but not necessarily. It seems the people choose a 'customer' and then just spam all the forums the person is administrating - it's easier for them than some 'random' spamming.

Also, it is not always bots. We blocked for those by using Q/A sign ups instead of CAPTCHA. And the groups of real people who signs up to spam the forums often get too annoyed if they have to struggle too much to be able to 'get in'.

The groups of real people spamming the forums are the worse, of course, as Dale Johnson says; you cannot really stop them - only annoy them enough not to bother. They are spamming forums, blogs etc. with links and get paid to do this. They can even be so tricky, they reply to threads so it seems as if they are really a part of the community, but then have a link to the product sites in their signatures or their profile pages or in some cases, even in their posts.

 

[Thanatos]

i got link to my products in my profile!

 

[Svarog]

i got link to my products in my profile!

That's ok, the advertising fee is subtracted from your loot