Spambots

Nebulous2

fermi wrote: »

Agreed.

I hate the spam as much, or probably more than anyone, as BG on the money boards where most of it goes, but I will and would resist any restrictions that prevent people being able to immediately post for help.

There are two different things here:-

1. An immediate crisis of credibility for the whole forum. Putting in some quick fixes to make a difference and to show people are taking the current situation seriously would be appreciated.

If first post approval is seen as moderation, then I previously suggested posts be limited to one in twenty minutes. The idea above of limiting new threads may be even better, three in twenty-four hours should be enough.

2. If short-term action gives some breathing space then the longer-term plan could be developed in a more systematic planned way. There could be much more sophisticated responses to the spam button being pushed for instance, depending on time of day and the previous history of the person pushing the button, so 'trusted' posters get listened to more.

A two-tiered approach would mean any restrictions that limit the opportunities of new posters to get help are maintained for only as long as they need to be.

There isn't exactly a lot of help if your post is buried in three pages of spam.

fermi

Unfortunately there is not a separate option to throttle new posts and threads like that for new users in the forum software.

There is just a simple time limit between posts - not separate for threads - that applies to everyone, so increasing that would significantly impact usability of the forum for all users.



Anything else would require a 3rd party mod/hack of the forum code, which even if one exists for the old outdated version of vBulletin running here, can be problematic in itself and would probably need some significant testing.

Not always as simple as 'just to this or that' in the short term.

fermi

redfox wrote: »

totally agree.

The situation has been allowed to get completely out of control. Weekends are often quieter in respect of these spammers but I have to say I am dreading logging on tomorrow morning as I'm sure there will be loads of them across our boards to delete.

Not likely to be pretty....

torbrex

redfox wrote: »

totally agree.

The situation has been allowed to get completely out of control. Weekends are often quieter in respect of these spammers but I have to say I am dreading logging on tomorrow morning as I'm sure there will be loads of them across our boards to delete.

weekends tend to be quieter from this type of spam as the infected computers are likely to be in offices and closed for the weekend.
Agree that Monday is usually the worst day of the week but because they have been getting free run on this forum it is difficult to say which day is worst.

moneyistooshorttomention

Is that how these spambots work then? - ie manage to steal access to other peoples computers and make them send in the spam for them iyswim?

I gather a DDOS involves stealing access to lots of innocent peoples computers - but didn't think spambots do that?

**************

Anyway, I've switched on this morning - and I cant spot any spam:).

Does that mean they've been dealt with at last? I know I lost contact with the whole MSE website yesterday evening at one point and when I tried to re-get it found I was getting "/closed" up by the MSE address at top of screen. I assumed that we had all found MSE was closed for business and that this meant they had finally found a way/the will to deal with it and had to shut the whole website down temporarily to put it in place.

Is that the case?

pelirocco

I don't understand why some posters are making such a fuss , ok so it's irritating when you log on in the morning and you see spam , do what I do .....scroll past its really not a big deal

moneyistooshorttomention

The fuss is because MSE doesn't appear to be dealing with it.

Spoke too soon re the spammers - just noticed one of them is at it again.

redfox

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Spoke too soon re the spammers - just noticed one of them is at it again.

yes, they're about again, just cleared the Loans board of a load.

fermi

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Anyway, I've switched on this morning - and I cant spot any spam:).

You missed a big batch before you logged on.

fermi

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Is that how these spambots work then? - ie manage to steal access to other peoples computers and make them send in the spam for them iyswim?

Some do. Not necessarily these ones here, but have certainly seen it elsewhere where the IPs originate from companies and home connections scattered across the world, and are obviously machines compromised in some way.