The Spamming On Here

[littlewiggy]

Every morning I come on here, I see ad's for bedrooms and kitchens and what have you, followed by diligent members duly reporting them.
Day after day without fail.
A whole plethora of them.

What I've long been wondering though, why is it so easy for spammers (& their 'Bots' no doubt) to access this site in the first place?

Instead of deleting and banning the daily deluge of spammers, shouldn't more be getting done to make this site wholly inaccessible to them in the first place?

I have no idea how easy or indeed how difficult the joining-up process is (I've been to bed a few times since I joined sadly), but surely given the daily influx of spamming this site suffers, a few easy footy trivia questions to answer before enabling your joining up / acceptance as a member might be a help?

I'm a member of quite a few forums on a whole variety of subjects, and I've never known one so religiously and as rigorously spammed as this one.

Either the logging-in / joining up process really needs looking at, or this site is just really, really unlucky.

[littlewiggy]

PS. I didn't write "crap" in my opening line - I wrote "K*I*T*C*H*E*N*S" but this site changed it to "crap."

Bizarre.

[Karb]

littlewiggy wrote:

PS. I didn't write "crap" in my opening line - I wrote "K*I*T*C*H*E*N*S" but this site changed it to "crap." Bizarre.

Only posters with the special Privileged membership status are allowed to post the word kitchens

[grantham]

It's REALLY easy to solve the constant sign-up of spambots, yet nothing has been done.

One example is to put a custom question on the sign-up page that requires a human to respond. Keep changing the answer whenever a spambot is noticed and hey presto problem solved.

Also, IP addresses of persistent 'offenders' can be blocked, but again nothing appears to be done
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[littlewiggy]

That's what I was wondering.

Somebody has obviously gone to trouble of making sure the word K*I*T*C*H*E*N*S appears as "crap," yet has done nothing about the sods spamming in the first place.

To be quite frank, it's becoming a bore to come here of a day and seeing endless ad's about you-know-what followed by another load of posts reporting it, before you even find anything new of a perusal nature.

The site will eventually die on its arse unless it's addressed I fear.

Footfall already appears to be down.

[Superblue]

I agree with you 100% littlewiggy my good friend. Something needs to be done. Although i am 25, i am not advance in the computer world as a average 25 might be. I got the opportunity to go on a excel course with work in April which i took with both hands to better myself in possible future employment (plus got out of pressure washing in the cold for a day). Unfortunately after 6 hours, the only thing I remember is how good the food was a lunch time which was free!. So I agree something needs to be done but I am unable to come up with a suitable solution.

Kyle

[littlewiggy]

Cheers Kyle.

[Superblue]

Your welcome.

[mellieha]

I posted a message on here earlier and someone or something added faces to it. I thought my pc had been hacked! It just shows how unsecure this site is!

[Tynie Topics]

As I have said on many occasions, the simple solution is to shut down new registrations for a period of time until a solution is found.

The forum has probably been targeted by former members, its fairly easy to direct spambots towards a forum. From memory it really started to get bad a few years back when there was the stooshy about the guy who got jailed for selling fake FA Cup final tickets, and he was a member of the forum, or one of his cohorts was. Just a hunch.

It may also be time to consider starting completely afresh with a new forum. Craig the owner is no longer active on here, I don’t even think he collects anymore, but thankfully keeps it going and intervenes when necessary. Perhaps time to research new forum hosts, new Admins and more moderators to keep things on track. Past Pirate is largely on his own doing this.
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[grantham]

More than happy to host and moderate.

I've sent Craig a message saying as much, lets wait and see

I have 15 years phpbb experience and know how to deal with the bots
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www.programmehut.com - The Internet Dealers
archives.football Results, line-ups, profiles, programmes, player images and much more

[Five and In]

It is a real shame that the Spammers are spoiling this site for the rest.

I joined this site nearly a year ago and have loved it.
I have been given good advice at times, given advice back, sold, purchased and generally got involved in many discussions, whilst making several new friends with a common interest of whom I will probably never put faces to names. Thank you for all of that.
I have the site open on my laptop constantly every day.

Bottom line: Whatever needs to be done to stop the Spammers - Do it!
I am no "tekkie", but there must be mileage in what others have already suggested?

[pastpirate]

Yes I agree with all you are saying. Craig has done a lot to stop this but it just doesn't work.
Craig is the only one that can create moderators or set a "capcha" thing when registering.
I think that would stop it so I will contact him as well to see if there is anything he can do.
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[craig]

grantham wrote:

It's REALLY easy to solve the constant sign-up of spambots, yet nothing has been done. One example is to put a custom question on the sign-up page that requires a human to respond. Keep changing the answer whenever a spambot is noticed and hey presto problem solved. Also, IP addresses of persistent 'offenders' can be blocked, but again nothing appears to be done

Hello,

If only it was easy to solve the problem...

There are captcha forms on the signup page which is a custom integration with Oscommerce. The page on phpbb where signup is conducted doesnt even exist any more. And the IPs are changed constantly as you would suspect.

Im not on a laptop at the moment but will try to take a look tomorrow.

There is a newer version of phpbb which would almost certainly help, but then all custom addons such as members wants, galleries etc would be lost

As i say, ill look tomorrow deeper into it.

[pastpirate]

Cheers Craig.

Didn't think it would easily be solved.

We get the same problem on both Rovers forums.
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www.bristolroversmemorabilia.weebly.com The definitive list of Bristol Rovers programmes

[littlewiggy]

Fair do's, you can't ask for anymore than that.

Cheers for agreeing to look into it guys.

[craig]

pastpirate wrote:

Cheers Craig. Didn't think it would easily be solved. We get the same problem on both Rovers forums.

Hi Jamie,

Ive removed about 4000 spam users and also changed the signup process which the bots are using. I will monitor over the next couple of days if any new bot users are able to sign up etc.

Kind regards
Craig

[craig]

craig wrote:

pastpirate wrote: Cheers Craig. Didn't think it would easily be solved. We get the same problem on both Rovers forums. Hi Jamie, Ive removed about 4000 spam users and also changed the signup process which the bots are using. I will monitor over the next couple of days if any new bot users are able to sign up etc. Kind regards Craig

A further update as new bots were still signing up after the changes I made this morning.

Ive changed the recaptcha process we use on the signup page. Previously this blocking 48% of users in the last 7 days. Based on the number of genuine users I guess that about 50% of spam was getting through and 2% were genuine.

Ill see how the new updated recaptcha gets on.

Thanks all.

Kind regards
Craig

[roughyedz]

Superblue wrote:

I agree with you 100% littlewiggy my good friend. Something needs to be done. Although i am 25, i am not advance in the computer world as a average 25 might be. I got the opportunity to go on a excel course with work in April which i took with both hands to better myself in possible future employment (plus got out of pressure washing in the cold for a day). Unfortunately after 6 hours, the only thing I remember is how good the food was a lunch time which was free!. So I agree something needs to be done but I am unable to come up with a suitable solution. Kyle

I do hope your BOSS isnt a member of this forum Kyle as you may be in for a spot of bother if he reads it, and may NEVER be sent on a course again to furher your career ......

[Tynie Topics]

https://www.proboards.com/
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