New SPAM phenomenon

[arpeejay]

http://www.facebook.com/arpeejay

[Aielyn]

Seems to me that spambots, in general, have been far more common recently... is there any chance for some sort of forum update to block the current exploits being used by spambots?

If it costs money to update vBulletin in a way that blocks those exploits, perhaps it's worth looking into transitioning over to an open source forum system, like phpBB (script for converting vbulletin forum to phpbb) or Vanilla Forums (Import tool info here).

The aim would, of course, be to find a solution that requires a minimum of effort.

EDIT: If it gets done, perhaps some community involvement could be brought in, to do things like come up with a new theme-set for the site. It would be pretty cool, for instance, to have "new posts" and "no new posts" symbols that appear as a guy before and after muscle growth, or something like that.

[caneda]

Hard not to notice 'em... They're freaking everywhere! Can someone do something?

[visionsofruin]

Yeah, seems like spam is on the rise.

[arpeejay]

http://www.facebook.com/arpeejay

[Shade]

Richard,

A few questions and please forgive my ignorance:

1. Is this something that could be solved through a more advanced account creation process?

2. When you delete, do you just delete the account or do you also need to delete every posting made by the spambot?

3. Can some of us share your burden? I think we all love this site, and I believe that the stories and postings are just as good as they've ever been. I'd like to see that continue uninterrupted. So I'm happy to help.

Please let us know.

Best,

Neill

[fleXodus]

Thank you for all your help with this recent spate of Spam.

Yesterday I went ahead and changed all of the Human Verification questions, which are presented upon registration. They are Question + Answer sets which usually trip up bots. I think somehow the previous batch of questions were defeated. I've just gone and changed the question to see if that'll stave off the spam for a while.

If the spam continues to be an issue, I may just close off registration for the time being, or try to figure out a way through which new member registrations go through a manual approval process, though I'd rather it not get to that point!

Thanks!
Flexodus

[JeffXeno]

Originally Posted by fleXodus

Thank you for all your help with this recent spate of Spam.

Yesterday I went ahead and changed all of the Human Verification questions, which are presented upon registration. They are Question + Answer sets which usually trip up bots. I think somehow the previous batch of questions were defeated. I've just gone and changed the question to see if that'll stave off the spam for a while.

If the spam continues to be an issue, I may just close off registration for the time being, or try to figure out a way through which new member registrations go through a manual approval process, though I'd rather it not get to that point!

Thanks!
Flexodus

Thank you for attempting to improve the situation, and thanks again for letting us all know about it.

If I can help in any way, I'm willing to try.

Jeff

[Lucas88]

Thanks for the effort, Flexodus. I'm with Jeff. Working from home on a computer, I'm on and off the site a lot during the day. Happy to try and take over some of the effort for our retiring Richard.

Lucas

[WhoDunIt]

As I said in Rich's thread, if you want, I can help with the spam clearing. It always seems that I'm always logging on via smart phone right after many of these posts are made. Just sent me a pm if you do.

[arpeejay]

http://www.facebook.com/arpeejay

[arpeejay]

http://www.facebook.com/arpeejay

[arpeejay]

http://www.facebook.com/arpeejay

[JeffXeno]

Originally Posted by arpeejay

It worked for about 12 hours, then it started up again. I just deleted at least half a dozen spam accounts.

xoxo

Richard

I usually check the site a few times a day. I'm willing to help with new user verification. I think that user verification before allowing posts is your best hope at killing the Spots.

Jeff

[amauiguy]

Is there a way to prevent multiple posts within a short period of time? Maybe that would help cut down on the spam. Another would be to add a capcha every time someone wants to make a post. Not sure whether either of those options might be available on these boards.

Also, I'd be happy to volunteer to delete spam accounts, if more vigilance is desired.

Thanks all for the hard work at maintaining the forums. They usually run so smoothly that the average member can forget that people are working behind the scenes to keep the machinery oiled!

[raven79]

Well, I spoke too soon. Exhich is back on here.

[fleXodus]

Hey guys,

I wanted to find a more permanent solution which did not include dedicating more manpower to manually rooting out spam, especially due to the exponential increase of this automated spam as-of-late.

I've enabled the Akismet service for the site. The Akismet web service uses an ever-changing (and learning) algorithm that scans all posts and flags messages it suspects are spam. These flagged messages are placed into a moderation queue, and thus are hidden from users.

Because spam bots have been able to successfully fool the human verification system and thus are able to create active accounts capable of posting, Akismet should be able to stop these messages from appearing at all, while allowing legitimate posts through unhindered. From what I have researched, Akismet is highly accurate and can cut down 99% of spam postings.

How can Akismet help?

From their site: Akismet monitors millions of blogs and forums, watching the methods and tricks used by spammers in real time. We know all about their spambots, comment factories, buffer sites and social engineering tricks. Akismet will use this knowledge to warn you when a spammer ? automated or human ? tries to sneak a spam comment past you. So if you notice a comment in your spam folder from someone you don?t know, or linking to a web site you?ve never seen before, take a good look at it before you hit the Unspam button: in all likelihood, Akismet put it there for a reason.

If you're interested you can read more about how Akismet works here.

TechCrunch: Akismet Just Filtered Its 50 Billionth Piece Of Spam, Now Seeing 700 Spam Comments Per Second (Link)

The Akismet filter works by combining information about the spam it captures on all participating blogs, then uses that info to define rules to block future spam. The system is now included by default in WordPress builds (since version 2.0) and in all the hosted WordPress.com blogs. There?s also an API for use outside of WordPress.

According to stats from the company, 92% of all comments checked by Akismet are spam. (Also, whoa!) Last month, the anti-spam system was used by 12 million sites, with an accuracy rate of 99.9%, Automattic claims. Which kind of makes it all the more impressive when you see a spam comment get through, when you stop and think about it.

Fingers crossed!