Spambots

[Nick]

I just set up new user registration to require one moderator-approved post before becoming a full member of the site. Spambots are starting to wander in.

[web]

cool!

[Nick]

So we need to figure this spam thing out

[Shawn]

So we need to figure this spam thing out

All registered users now must have ONE approved post before they can begin posting on the forums. Think we need more moderators in order to get these approved in a timely manner?

You would think phpBB would have a feature that e-mails when things are awaiting moderation....but it's not even really easy to add a mod that does this so we just have to check frequently and approve new posts.

[web]

lets all sing.......spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam

[Nick]

We must have hit some magic number for post count or traffic or something, spambots have gone nuts the past day or two. At least fifteen today in the Anything Goes section, but I think it's set up so you guys don't have to look at the gibberish.

[mulad]

Yeah, I haven't noticed anything yet.

[ECtransplant]

[Nick]

Whoa this one might be close to becoming self-aware..?

[mulad]

Yeah, I've seen some almost spooky stuff pop up in the spam bucket for streets.mn. The spammers seem to scoop up comments from all sorts of sites and then try to regurgitate them when they find articles matching certain keywords. The spam comments seem to get chopped up and reassembled in weird ways, though.

[Nick]

Due to a recent deluge of spambots with Hotmail email addresses and me not being aware of any real person with a Hotmail email address, I blocked them all. For about a month now there's been a huge number of new accounts with email addresses that follow the same adjective/noun/threenumbers@hotmail.com formula. Since I did that earlier today, it seems to have stopped. If there are legitimate posters with Hotmail addresses, let me know.

[MSPtoMKE]

I have a Hotmail address!








...as my spam email account. It was my very first email address from the early days of interneting on Netscape.

[talindsay]

I have a Hotmail address!








...as my spam email account. It was my very first email address from the early days of interneting on Netscape.

Should I point out the irony of identifying a hotmail address with Netscape? Ah, browser wars, would that you would return. Our browsers are getting bloaty.

[trkaiser]

I have a Hotmail address!

Me too!