ModernChivalry.org
Main => The Round Table => Topic started by: Sir Edward on 2010-07-28, 14:29:08
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I'm still having to keep the forum on manual-verification of new users. Anyone signing up, please feel free to email me (contact info up in the "NOTE" section in the upper part of the page) to make sure you get signed up.
We're getting new users every few days, but they're all spammers. I'm getting to the point where I'm just deleting them as soon as I see them, since they have odd or simplistic usernames and tend to use gmail and other free email systems.
If I delete any real new users by accident, please forgive me, and send me an email!
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If you have difficulty joining the forum or creating an account, I can be contact at bones /at/ toton.org.
I've started getting very aggressive about deleting spam-bot accounts, and it's getting harder to tell from email addresses and chosen usernames which ones truly aren't legit. Please, when signing up for an account, send me an email at the above address to let me know you're a real person, so I won't accidentally delete your account.
I deleted seven bots this morning alone.
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Wow...they are really trying hard aren't they? To do what though, I wonder...
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its cause were elitists and they want into the club hehe
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Ha ha, good point!
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Well, obviously the bots want in to send information about earth's secret historically-based line of defense back to the mothership. ;D
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The bots will generally make a post or two like "Wow, great, been looking for this info" in a few threads to make it seem like a "good" new user. But then they create their sig, and the user profile website links, to link to a site generally along the lines of v!agr@ and things of that ilk.
Then as search engines start indexing the forum threads, and since part of the ranking of sites in a search is based on how many pages have linked to the site searched for ... bots with the same link across hundreds or thousands of forums shoots up their rankings in search results.
Better mousetraps make better mice, as they say. :(
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Well, I let the new sign-ups pile up over the weekend and deleted 11 this morning. It's gotten to the point that I'm just outright deleting anything in the formats of "FirstnameLastname" or "FirstnameLastnameX" (where X is some number of digits or possibly random letters), especially if they use a free email service like hotmail or gmail for the account. They tend to use actual email accounts, because most forums require you to reply to an automatic email before you're allowed to post. They got through those AND the captchas before I switched new sign-ups to manual activation.
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ugh, just think how much info they're sending to the mothership? Man, we're in trouble when the main bot visits earth from the home planet!
But really, thats GOT to be damn annoying >:(
You computer programmers are better folks than I....
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Sir Nathan...you, uh...haven't been a 'guest' on the mothership previously, have you? lol
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Hah, a spam bot tried to sign up this morning named "AntiSpamServerSoftware333". I've never known a knight by that name, have you? :)
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Isn't he the less known half-brother of Sir Spamalot and lady Gwenaspam! :D
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Also known as the son of SirSpamarama2733636.....+1 :D
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Well, I'm a new guy, and not a spammer, and am currently watching 'The Universe' while it snows here in Sparks, NV.
I hate being sick.
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Well, I'm a new guy, and not a spammer, and am currently watching 'The Universe' while it snows here in Sparks, NV.
I hate being sick.
BTW, Welcome to the forum! :)
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No robot could replace my geniussssssssssssssssssssssssssssss goto10_>
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Well, I'm a new guy, and not a spammer, and am currently watching 'The Universe' while it snows here in Sparks, NV.
I hate being sick.
Welcome. Hope you're feeling better by now. Your avatar looks familiar, but I can't place the screenname, though I'm thinking armourarchive?
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I'm starting to worry that I may be deleting an occasional real new user, since it's not always obvious, and not everyone replies to emails quickly, etc. So I've added two new things:
First, a new CAPTCHA. In addition to the old one, this one has to be solved to set up a new account, and it involves rotating images around with slider controls. If you want to see it, log out and click on register. You don't have to complete the registration to just spin the pictures around. :)
Secondly, I've added instructions after the sign-up to preemptively email me and let me know you're real.
Hopefully this will make the process smoother for new forum members, and reduce the amount of wanton deletion I have to do.
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There's a similar issue on another forum I'm on. We thought about adding something similar to the "google goggles" plugin, to have a few questions asked that have to be answered right when creating the account. Something simple that anyone registering would know, and wouldn't be prone to phrasing wrong (single answers).
Something like:
Who was the leader of the Knights of the Round Table? King: [enter answer here]
How many legs does a horse have? [single-digit box, if you can]
As long as that computer that was on Jeopardy isn't trying to register, it should trim down a lot of the botting, hopefully. :)
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Something like:
Who was the leader of the Knights of the Round Table? King: [enter answer here]
How many legs does a horse have? [single-digit box, if you can]
As long as that computer that was on Jeopardy isn't trying to register, it should trim down a lot of the botting, hopefully. :)
I just grabbed a mod to do this too (apparently last night a bot got through the new captcha, which could be random luck with a 1/512 chance). It looks like SMF 2.0 has this built in, but someone made a mod to add it to the 1.x line. It's out of date, but still patches in just fine. I even borrowed your questions here. :)
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Spammers...why don't they just join and expand their little minds?
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Well, I think it worked. I haven't seen a single bot sign up since adding those little questions.
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Well, I think it worked. I haven't seen a single bot sign up since adding those little questions.
I'm trying switching the forum back to self-activation for new members. That means they just have to click through on the email that the forum sends them to get activated. I still haven't had a single bot try to sign up since adding the sign-up questions, so we can give this a try again.
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I'm trying switching the forum back to self-activation for new members. That means they just have to click through on the email that the forum sends them to get activated. I still haven't had a single bot try to sign up since adding the sign-up questions, so we can give this a try again.
.... and now we're making changes again. Apparently adding all these methods of verifying that it's a real person is starting to confuse people. The last two people to try to sign up haven't been able to complete the registration for some reason. It always works when I test it though.
So. I took out the "spin the pictures to be upright" thing, and am using a slightly weaker CAPTCHA that's easier to read. The "trivia" questions thing is still there. So until we see whether or not the spam-bots can figure this out, we're back to manual approval of new members.
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...and now another spammer made it through. Wow. Making changes again.
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I am grateful for your acceptance of my desire to join the forum. I Look forward to learning form you all and sharing what I might know with you.
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Ditto what Lord Tristan said....
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+3 on what Lord Tristan said Sir Edward, thanks for seeing I'm not a bot. And I believe ANY and ALL measures to get by bots are well worth it on the receiving end as a new member. It just shows you (this forum, or others like it) really care about your forum and who posts here. Also, the anti-bot things that I went through here were by far the most thorough I have ever been through. I hope they're doing a good job. I actually got a kick out of the "spinner" anti-bot test :o had me a bit cross-eyed to begin with!
beyond that, Sir Edward, is there any way you can post up what anti-bot procedures those are, like what they're called and such. I'm on another forum, for the Adrian Empire, that's just really kicked up, and they're getting spammed like crazy, by the worst of kinds to where I'm scared my two-year old sees an accidental thread I go to! >:( Any help with that would be greatly appreciated!
thanks again Sir Edward, this is a great community
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They're just variations on a CAPTCHA. The spinners are part of a mod that I downloaded. But believe it or not, I think the most effective anti-spammer feature is the "20 questions" game. Just stupid little questions that require you to understand the sentence. I had added a version of that via a mod in the previous version of the forum software, and it cut out about 90% of the spammers. The newer forum software has that feature built in.
Between all of it, we only get a spammer through it once every few months. The required email catches those.
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Awesome. :) Thank you for giving me that information Sir Edward. Now, may I ask is it okay if I hyperlink to this topic thread in the new Adrian Empire forums? I figure that may be the best way for them to see what's been done here, as I believe it's working rather well.
YIS
B. Patricius
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Sure thing, glad to help. :)
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thank you Sir Edward :D
btw I just saw a youtube video by chance of you and Sir Brian praciticing longsword. Well done to both of you, very good. That five shot parried set was especially pretty!
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Yeah it feels like we kind of know what we are doing when we get those good exchanges. :)
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We've started getting a few junk accounts signing up again, so I'm trying a new CAPTCHA on the registration page. It's a 3rd party one, that involves assembling puzzle pieces. I'm using the free version right now, but if it works well, I can always upgrade to the paid version later (which allows for more customization and rebranding).
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Just let me at em! I'll slay each of these fowl spammers! I'll put them in shackles!
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There was a post on the DoK FB group that had an idea. It was essentially adding a checkbox that says "if you check this box, you can not register" and leave it unchecked by default. Some of the spam-bots will automatically check uniquely named check boxes, so it will check it, then instantly fail registration without troubling you with a junk account.
I have no access to any code whatsoever for DoK, only the admin control panel thing, but since you have full code access for here, figured I'd mention it.
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That's a pretty clever idea. I might have to think about that.