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DrP
National Hazard
Posts: 625
Registered: 28-9-2005
Member Is Offline
Mood: exothermic
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There is SOOOO much spam today from Karl99 and brucefuckssheep3 today.... at another site I go to they fix a new registered user with a 5 post cap
on the first day or until the mods are sure they aren't a spam bot or a crank.
I can't sift through it all - I'll come back later.
[Edited on 4-12-2018 by DrP]
\"It\'s a man\'s obligation to stick his boneration in a women\'s separation; this sort of penetration will increase the population of the younger
generation\" - Eric Cartman
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Tsjerk
International Hazard
Posts: 3032
Registered: 20-4-2005
Location: Netherlands
Member Is Offline
Mood: Mood
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Wait five minutes (3 actually) and refresh. Don't whine and be grateful Melgar did a pretty damn good job so far.
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8012
Registered: 20-8-2005
Location: Netherlands
Member Is Offline
Mood: interested
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Indeed, if there is a lot of spam, then it is short-lived. Things have become much better with Melgar's scripts.
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fusso
International Hazard
Posts: 1922
Registered: 23-6-2017
Location: 4 ∥ universes ahead of you
Member Is Offline
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What advantages can the spammers get when they include a string of random letters in the title?
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j_sum1
Administrator
Posts: 6320
Registered: 4-10-2014
Location: At home
Member Is Offline
Mood: Most of the ducks are in a row
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It is a numbers game. They employ a wide range of simple strategies in the hopes that something will evade detection for long enough for it to have
its desired effect. It is the same reason that ferns produce millions of spores and fish lay thousands of eggs. All they need is for one to stick.
It is more time effective to produce many simple variants and very large volumes than it is to do any actual targeted marketing or evaluation of
strategies.
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12thealchemist
Hazard to Others
Posts: 181
Registered: 1-1-2014
Location: The Isle of Albion
Member Is Offline
Mood: Rare and Earthy
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I've noticed a significant increase in the quantity of spam slipping through the net. It seems the majority is getting tacked on the end of threads
started within the past decade or so, and was wondering why Melgar's excellent filter is missing these. Are we looking at a move soon?
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fusso
International Hazard
Posts: 1922
Registered: 23-6-2017
Location: 4 ∥ universes ahead of you
Member Is Offline
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@Melgar had you analyse % of spam posts attached to the end of real threads and spam posts as new threads? Are they different now (recent flood of
slipped spams at the end of real threads) and then (before the flood)?
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j_sum1
Administrator
Posts: 6320
Registered: 4-10-2014
Location: At home
Member Is Offline
Mood: Most of the ducks are in a row
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Right. Back from holiday. Seems to be a regular stream of spam making its way through at the moment and it is taking a bit to clean.
Current trends:
Spam appended to the end of sticky threads: often ten or more at a time.
Spammers evading deletion through use of registrations from months ago.
Spam containing chemistry-related words along with all the other garbage. Some words and phrases seem to be harvested from this board.
General decrease in efficiency of botkilla in my estmation: I think this dates from when Melgar loosened the filter following an accidental
thread deletion. It might be time to tweak those flag weightings.
At the moment I am deleting most spam reports without reading. If you want to get my attention - especially if you discover a new trend or find
some4thhing embedded in a thread, please send me a u2u.
[edit] formatting
[Edited on 31-12-2018 by j_sum1]
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XeonTheMGPony
International Hazard
Posts: 1640
Registered: 5-1-2016
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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Why not automatically lock all inactive accounts, ie if some one makes an account and i has been inactive for 3 weeks lock posting privileges until
they pm a mod to get it back?
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Ubya
International Hazard
Posts: 1247
Registered: 23-11-2017
Location: Rome-Italy
Member Is Offline
Mood: I'm a maddo scientisto!!!
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Quote: Originally posted by XeonTheMGPony | Why not automatically lock all inactive accounts, ie if some one makes an account and i has been inactive for 3 weeks lock posting privileges until
they pm a mod to get it back? |
mods already have a lot of work, plus it would be pretty boring to wait from a few hours to a few days just to comment something on the board (not
everyone is active every day)
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feel free to correct my grammar, or any mistakes i make
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S.C. Wack
bibliomaster
Posts: 2419
Registered: 7-5-2004
Location: Cornworld, Central USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enhanced
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Brilliant...since that's the majority of actual members, why not lock all accounts then? Much easier than disabling new
shitposters/spammers/personalities er members.
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j_sum1
Administrator
Posts: 6320
Registered: 4-10-2014
Location: At home
Member Is Offline
Mood: Most of the ducks are in a row
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Quote: Originally posted by S.C. Wack |
Brilliant...since that's the majority of actual members, why not lock all accounts then? Much easier than disabling new
shitposters/spammers/personalities er members. |
No shortage of good ideas. But the active mods/admins are limited to solutions that do not require re-coding of the board software. What Melgar has
achieved with minimal privileges is remarkable. Migration to a new platform is by far the best solution and will not require the kind of restrictions
you are proposing.
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S.C. Wack
bibliomaster
Posts: 2419
Registered: 7-5-2004
Location: Cornworld, Central USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enhanced
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The only thing I have proposed is disabling registration, a suboptimal here and now thing, not a wished for (wouldn't it be embarrassing if spam
continued at a new board) future. I do wonder if public search engine visibility has caused more problems than it's worth.
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j_sum1
Administrator
Posts: 6320
Registered: 4-10-2014
Location: At home
Member Is Offline
Mood: Most of the ducks are in a row
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You are right. Disabling registration is suboptimal. We did it once for 2 weeks and, although the spam nearly stopped it was not welcoming for
newbies. It was not sustainable.
Mods have limited options. Admins have more. The changes needed require back-end access which needs input from the board's owner.
Right now there are a few on holiday and so fixing things is slower. Sorry.
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hacker
Harmless
Posts: 34
Registered: 18-12-2018
Member Is Offline
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Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1 | Quote: Originally posted by S.C. Wack |
Brilliant...since that's the majority of actual members, why not lock all accounts then? Much easier than disabling new
shitposters/spammers/personalities er members. |
No shortage of good ideas. But the active mods/admins are limited to solutions that do not require re-coding of the board software. What Melgar has
achieved with minimal privileges is remarkable. Migration to a new platform is by far the best solution and will not require the kind of restrictions
you are proposing. |
Why does Melgar have minimal privileges?
I can eliminate 99.9% of spam with one line of Python or PHP. Anyone can.
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j_sum1
Administrator
Posts: 6320
Registered: 4-10-2014
Location: At home
Member Is Offline
Mood: Most of the ducks are in a row
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You have already stated that you are a coding genius. Great. I am sure your one line of code is awesome.
Believe me. The mods and admins have looked at a number of options. But this is an old, inflexible system.
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hacker
Harmless
Posts: 34
Registered: 18-12-2018
Member Is Offline
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Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1 | You have already stated that you are a coding genius. Great. I am sure your one line of code is awesome.
Believe me. The mods and admins have looked at a number of options. But this is an old, inflexible system. |
That's beside the point. You didn't answer the question. Is Polverone MIA?
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ninhydric1
Hazard to Others
Posts: 345
Registered: 21-4-2017
Location: Western US
Member Is Offline
Mood: Bleached
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Yes, Polverone hasn't been on the forum for one and a half months.
The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.
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fusso
International Hazard
Posts: 1922
Registered: 23-6-2017
Location: 4 ∥ universes ahead of you
Member Is Offline
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Sadly Polverone isn't doing anything. I wonder if he simply wants to abandon the board?
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hacker
Harmless
Posts: 34
Registered: 18-12-2018
Member Is Offline
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The spambot is pretty weak. Or is this good?
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Ubya
International Hazard
Posts: 1247
Registered: 23-11-2017
Location: Rome-Italy
Member Is Offline
Mood: I'm a maddo scientisto!!!
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BotKilla probably died... too many spam threads
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feel free to correct my grammar, or any mistakes i make
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j_sum1
Administrator
Posts: 6320
Registered: 4-10-2014
Location: At home
Member Is Offline
Mood: Most of the ducks are in a row
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This spammer has an old registration. Therefore it it not autodeleting the account when reported. Also, probably for a similar reason, it is not being
flagged via botkilla's filters. I think the settings need tweaking.
ATM, this account is producing a string of 14 spam threads about 6-8 times a day. It also bypasses flood protection: posting at about 25 second
interval. This means it is not a dumb bit of code. It is also adapting: albeit not as fast as another current spammer.
I have manually deleted the 14 threads maybe a dozen times over the past couple of days. It requires either an adjustment to Melgar's script or an
admin to freeze the account.
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hacker
Harmless
Posts: 34
Registered: 18-12-2018
Member Is Offline
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Is this board run by adults?
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WGTR
National Hazard
Posts: 971
Registered: 29-9-2013
Location: Online
Member Is Offline
Mood: Outline
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Yes, but the effective number of adults (ENA) who run the board who are present at any given time can be represented approximately by dividing the
number of adults who run the board by 365, and then multiplying by the number of days that they are actually here. To achieve better granularity, it
is better to improve resolution to an hourly basis instead of daily. Also, this doesn't account for the holidays (like right now), when most people
are taking a much-needed break. Ha, ha.
Anyway, j_sum1, can you delete user accounts? Or change account passwords? One trick that I would use would be to re-register the account name and
then retire it with a random password and a snarky message. I'm not sure what all you can do as a Super Mod.
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MariaCoosy1
Harmless
Posts: 1
Registered: 1-1-2019
Member Is Offline
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See what I just did here?
MariaCoosy1 is an evil spammer who has been retired by WGTR. She is a filthy creature who has been condemned to reside trapped within the confines of
an underserviced cat litter box.
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