People misusing the forum

alexzarach

Can anyone ban the ip address of guest user "yuarPKlsYG" advertising sex pages online, or "qObEHVtDmJ" using this site for general adverts. Both are on the forum page http://sakana.ath.cx:81/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=2321

Q

SPAMmers banned and posts deleted.

-Q

alexzarach

Thanks!

alexzarach

http://sakana.ath.cx:81/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=3944&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=25

PLEASE BAN THESE IP ADDRESSES! WHO'D WANT TO BUY VIAGRA, ANYWAY?

IT'S ANNOYING[/url]

Q

It's all lamers on 85.*.113.*. Currently that entire range is banned from the forumn. Hopefully that'll work. If not, it'll be expanded.

-Q

PS. Noone, if it comes from a questionable source like forumn SPAMs.

BOD

Just disable guest posting

alexzarach

Why not disable guest posting, as BOD said? Surely those who currently post as guests can be bothered to register. The spammers are the only users who can't register.

BOD

Spam bots do and have registered.

alexzarach

Haven't their ip addresses or accounts been blocked?

BOD

Yeah, but these things are completely random IPs. There's no way you could get away by just banning people.

alexzarach

Haven't all spammers' accounts been banned? I only saw spammers on guest accounts now. I think the guest account option should be disabled-it's a bit unnerving having sex and viagra adverts in a computer forum!

BlueSun

Theres not a whole lot you can do about it... the IP's are different every time... a lot of proxies...

Disabling guest posting is fine, but I think ka0s and Q decided against it... even if you did, they'd only register accounts... some actually post... but most just set the site they're spamming as their website under the profile...

You can enable stuff like activation... but again that only stops them posting... Visual confirmation works a little bit but the default one in phpBB has been cracked I think...

theres a mod that hides new users from the member list and requires admin acctivation, if the admin activates the account, it shows up in the member list... otherwise its deleted...

but thats anoying to the admins if you have a lot of spam bots

Evlhxrdood

Check out this site:

http://www.barkerhill.com/phpBB2/index.php

The software changes that I made a couple of weeks ago are working very well. No automatic spam sites have made it in. This doesn't mean a human couldn't come in, register, and put their porno site in. We will still have to watch for those. Automatic user registrations have been back on since the software change and everything is working.

What he did was you had to put in a "Special Code" in the registration page, the ViP code,

http://www.barkerhill.com/phpBB2/profil ... greed=true

VIP code: *
You can find today's VIP code on the first page at www.barkerhill.com!(Notice that the link isn't clickable on the form)

The spam bots are not smart enough to go to the main page and read the code and put it in the registration, It worked very well with that site.

Q

Fish and I did talk and we both HATE places that make your register to post or do anything useful (DriverGuide, et al.). Generally we manage to find out patterns and block them. And frankly I don't think anyone (Even me, who gets NO spam in their Email) is THAT unnerved by Viagra-spam.

-Q

BOD

Can't you add a GD thing for posting, kinda like slashdot does?

SurfinShell23

I definitely do not think Guest posting should be disabled.

-SSH

Q

Modifying phpBB/SQL is Fish's remit alone.

Personally I'm in favor of the lightest and least noticeable (to legit posters) method possible. I think some of the wider rangeblocks applied appear to have done something.

-Q

Ka0s

Yea, its definitely slowed down, unless someone else has been getting it today, cause I didnt notice much while I refreshed constantly @ work.

Q

I was out all day so it wasn't me.

-Q

Ka0s

So, I didnt get up till like 9:30 today, and when I checked here, there was NO spam... Did someone delete it, or is it just non-existant now?

alexzarach

I can't see any. Have any changes been made to the registration page?

Q

I left at about 3AM and there was nothing untoward. Registration appears exactly the way it did when I signed up.

-Q

alexzarach

I'm posting in this old thread as I couldn't be bothered to start a new one. I saw quite amusing spam here.

Amusing as there wasn't a single real word!

BOD

Not a single *english* word.

alexzarach

BOD

It's probably because you don't have the language support installed for it.

alexzarach

You view it as Russian?

Q

I get gibberish, I think it was the bot's doing since I can view Russian text with no trouble.

Also, SPAM post deleted, thanx to everyone for not responding to it.

-Q

alexzarach

I was a big enough fool to click on the link, it was for free avatars. For the first time, viagra wasn't the subject of SPAM!

Q

Who on Earth SPAMs for that sort of thing?

-Q

alexzarach

Desperate people. The site began "For all those people waiting "impatiently", this site is now open."