what the fuck spambots

[FiahOwl]

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[blotz]

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME I JUST WROTE THIS WHOLE FANFIC ABOUT DAN FIGHTING OFF SPAMBOTS AND THEN I CLICKED 1 BUTTON AND THE WHOLE THING DIAPPEARED.

[smjjames]

And you expect a response from said spambots?

[Unreal2004]

We have been getting hit hard by Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, American and Canadian spammers lately, it is difficult to keep up at times when 10-15 register within 10 mins of each other. I/we have to go through each user and verify that they are indeed a spammer, this can sometimes mean waiting until they spam the boards since it MIGHT be a legitimate person but on average it is an easy check by looking at their emails, quite often they use ones already blacklisted.  Just keep reporting the posts you see and dont bother replying to them for they are just dummy accounts that no one replies to.  Thanks!

[Bla]

I found 6-7 this morning and also found about 10 every day for the past few days. Very annoying. But yes, the best you can do is not to reply to their posts and click report to moderator. If the same spambot user posts multiple posts, clicking report to moderator on one of its posts is enough.

[Darvince]

Guys, we just need to make the questions to join slightly unconventional but still something ESL learner would know. Like Darforum's "TEEL MEE TWENTY DIVIDED BY FOUR"

[smjjames]

There was a dental care spambot recently, who knew THOSE existed!

[Unreal2004]

Guys, we just need to make the questions to join slightly unconventional but still something ESL learner would know. Like Darforum's "TEEL MEE TWENTY DIVIDED BY FOUR"

The problem with that is there are companies (mainly in India from what I learned) that pay people to just sit and solve CAPTCHAs and puzzles for forums like this.  The only real way to stop spammers from spamming the forums are to manually filter each and every application but even then some would still slip through.  Until there is a way to ban known bad IP addresses from registering on the forums we just gotta put up with it, sorry 

[blotz]

you know they're actully mostly good people
like most of the topics are made in ee

[blotz]

scratch that

[smjjames]

You know, I've gotta ask, do you guys find my silly spambot reports annoying or...? I'm just checking.

I don't always do it in a silly way though.

[blotz]

it's annoyting now

[smjjames]

it's annoyting now

I mean my reports, not the spambots.

[blotz]

Just keep reporting the posts you see and dont bother replying to them for they are just dummy accounts that no one replies to.  Thanks!

[smjjames]

Just keep reporting the posts you see and dont bother replying to them for they are just dummy accounts that no one replies to.  Thanks!

*facepalm* I'm talking about the report to moderator function, not posting in the threads themselves.

[blotz]

reporting the posts

how is reporting even annoying i can't even see it

[Unreal2004]

Oh I see every email, today I had about 7 at one time..........that is very annoying hearing the "new mail" sound LOL.

[Darvince]

Unreal then maybe actually use "TEEL MEE?" Or something that people that are likely to access USForum to know? Like "what is the third planet from the sun"

[atomic7732]

arent some of them actual humans paid to post this stuff/solve captchas/sign up though? so that wouldnt help... :/

[blotz]

The problem with that is there are companies (mainly in India from what I learned) that pay people to just sit and solve CAPTCHAs and puzzles for forums like this. 

[Darvince]

some of them

[atomic7732]

idk how do you think they have gotten in recently

isn't there already a security question?

[blotz]

1 captcha and like 2 yes/no questions
you guys should add email verification

[FiahOwl]

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[blotz]

i love how this is like the only thread that has been not affected by spambots

[atomic7732]

we need a spambot task force

to counter-spam

[blotz]

unreal and dan?

[smjjames]

unreal and dan?

And Bla. I spotted Dan being on a couple min ago though, but they can't be around 24/7.

[Darvince]

we should temporarily close registration until someone makes the QA question longer or more complex
or email verification
or something, god, something to save us from the spam

[Unreal2004]

we should temporarily close registration until someone makes the QA question longer or more complex
or email verification
or something, god, something to save us from the spam

Registration is NOT closed right now but has been severely limited TEMPORARILY until we find a better solution.  Each new account must be approved by a moderator before it goes live, this was done earlier today (my time) and in that time Bla has rejected 17 and I have rejected 31.  The downside to this is a legitimate new user has to wait before he/she can post, this might turn them away from the forums and not come back, it is also somewhat time consuming to check each IP, if the IP comes back clean I check the email, if that is clean I check the username, when all 3 are clean do I approve the user.  I hope this wave of spam disappears soon so we can get back to our normal 1-2 Ugg or Nike posts a day, I miss those LOL.

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