Where does all that spam come from?

maruchan · 2011-07-27 17:05:51

I changed my PunBB over to manual registration — new users email me with their reason for wanting to join the forum.

Works better than anything else I’ve tried, and it’s amazing how many new registrations are spammers. As a bonus, false-negatives tend to go back and read the instructions by themselves. :-)

ruud · 2011-07-27 19:31:53

I’ve just implemented a check using stopforumspam during registration on this forum.
If that service is down, registration will continue after a 15 second timeout.
Each registration attempt (failed or not) is sent to me by email, so I can keep an eye on it for a while to see if it works properly.

Whoa… in just 7 minutes, I’m getting 5 registration attempts, all spam. Looks like it’s working ;)

Last edited by ruud (2011-07-27 19:35:20)

gaekwad · 2011-07-27 19:39:26

Suggestion: delete this thread – I’ve had multiple notifications over the day, all comments were spam. The opening post is spammy, it may even be drawing more spammers in as a ‘testing the waters’ post, so nothing of value will be lost by deleting it – I mean no offence to frickinmuch, michaelkpate, uli or colak, of course :)

PS: milestone post #250000 was spam in that thread.

Last edited by gaekwad (2011-07-27 19:40:07)

gaekwad · 2011-07-27 19:42:16

jayrope wrote:

If their language is Deutsch, maybe one of the forum members spreads it, when logged into the forum? Like me. No i don’t!

Everything I’ve seen so far has been Cyrillic characters, so presumably Russian or thereabouts.

ruud · 2011-07-27 19:47:50

gaekwad wrote:

Suggestion: delete this thread

Done.

Oh, btw, I just checked the list of users. We have 2700 users who’ve never posted even once. Out of those, 1950 are unverified registrations that occurred since july 7th 2011. That’s around 100 registrations per day. I’m surprised we don’t see more spam.

Current score: 12 registration attempts in 30 minutes, all spammy, all rejected ;)

Last edited by ruud (2011-07-27 19:58:41)

colak · 2011-07-27 20:07:35

ruud wrote:

Oh, btw, I just checked the list of users. We have 2700 users who’ve never posted even once. Out of those, 1950 are unverified registrations that occurred since july 7th 2011. That’s around 100 registrations per day. I’m surprised we don’t see more spam.

I cleaned up the user list both verified and unverified yesterday, Deleted over 6000 people.

Current score: 12 registration attempts in 30 minutes, all spammy, all rejected ;)

cool:) Is the stopforumspam mod in place?

ruud · 2011-07-27 20:13:05

^^ yes, that mod is active now. Caught 25 spam registration attempts in 45 minutes. I fear opening my mailbox tomorrow.

colak · 2011-07-27 20:38:53

ruud wrote:

…I fear opening my mailbox tomorrow.

I would open a gmail account if i were you:)

Thanks for your work on this one!

merz1 · 2011-07-27 20:43:24

Congratulation guys & thanks :)

ruud · 2011-07-27 21:34:34

After two hours: 73 registration attempts of which 71 were rejected.
It’ll be interesting to see what those 2 users do, the ones that did manage to register. I’m wondering if it makes sense to also check for spammers the first time they try to log in with the username/password they received by email, because I noticed that some first posts (spam) occurred several days after the registration. Or perhaps we should also do a check on the first and/or second post. Just a matter of fine-tuning.

After 12 hours: 425 registration attempts. Only 9 were not rejected.

Last edited by ruud (2011-07-28 07:28:23)

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#41 2011-07-27 17:05:51

Re: Where does all that spam come from?

#42 2011-07-27 19:31:53

Re: Where does all that spam come from?

#43 2011-07-27 19:39:26

Re: Where does all that spam come from?

#44 2011-07-27 19:42:16

Re: Where does all that spam come from?

#45 2011-07-27 19:47:50

Re: Where does all that spam come from?

#46 2011-07-27 20:07:35

Re: Where does all that spam come from?

#47 2011-07-27 20:13:05

Re: Where does all that spam come from?

#48 2011-07-27 20:38:53

Re: Where does all that spam come from?

#49 2011-07-27 20:43:24

Re: Where does all that spam come from?

#50 2011-07-27 21:34:34

Re: Where does all that spam come from?

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