A Note About Spammers

[Ryan]

Just to let everyone know (in case you didn't already) that spammers are trying to put links to drug and porn companies using clever "false headings" in their posts. I recommend that everyone cautiously view new or unfamiliar posters (especially those with only 1 or 2 posts). Not sure how many viruses or things they put on them or even if they are worksafe for those who view this site at work.

[Ari Bolden]

We should also not that spam is deleted almost instantly by one of us mods. So, spammmers, don't waste your time (as well as ours) because we'll also delete your profile and ban your IP.

[Tom Gavrilos]

I agree and thanks for helping me stay on top of this. Im working on having the webmaster make a "Captcha" durning sign up.

That should help a ton.

[Ryan]

No problem Tom. Its our pleasure. This is a great site that I would like to see grow with positive members who contribute good things.

[Hadaka Jime]

Im new here i know, but i've helped out at some other forums, and a thing we did was, if the account does not have 10 post on it, then they can not post a link to another website.. im sure people who really want to be here can manage 10 post w/o links, and it eliminates a lot of spam, or disable multi link post with like 10 or more links

[Ari Bolden]

not a bad idea Hadaka

[Hadaka Jime]

Please, call me Brett :cool: sorry just wanted a cool looking name:p

[Ryan]

I like that idea as well. And within those 10 posts we can usually tell if they are spammers.

[Ari Bolden]

Hey Tom:

Any way to set something like this up? Or perhaps have each person who signs up put their name, what city they are in and where they train? This way, bots won't get through and spammers won't take the time to write this out (*required fields or something like that).

[Hadaka Jime]

or one of those image verify registrations... because some people don't train any where and would feel neglect if they join to learn... i think another way is an image verification just have a picture that alternates a combo of like 6-8 letters and numbers, and don't have them in the low-fi version of the link, because some bots run a low-fi program were if it says photobucket.com/image/48fheu83 then it will copy and paste it... so were ever you get the image of number/letter combo make sure the final link doesn't contain the code

[Ryan]

Hadaka- Those things are so annoying. Tom has them on his myspace page to eliminate spam and it is a pain in the ass. Especially when you can't read them and have to go through 2-3 codes before they give you one that is legible.:mad:

[Hadaka Jime]

the thing that i do is just have 1 of them and don't have it be tough to read at all, a robot is programed to spam, there usually not people, and if they are the 15 post link limit will stop them, so i don't even think the pic codes are necisairy but it's just a thought/recomendation

[Ari Bolden]

Hey Tom:

I notice that 99% of the spam get's placed in this forum. Do you think its a bot that reads "Off Topic" and places it in here? If we changed the title to something else, would that help?Do we have any computer gurus around here that can give some sound advice?

[Tom Gavrilos]

Im not sure. Gurus PLEASE do chime in. I think the bots may search for the "off topic" keyword?

[Hadaka Jime]

hmm i have never heard of the bots only posting in off topic forums sections, but i still say just disable links for the first 10 post from the user and you'll be much better off

[Ari Bolden]

Brett is right..that would cut down on crap. Can we do that Tom?

[Tom Gavrilos]

Can I? Im not sure. do I want to...Im all for it!
Ill go play with the admin options see if I cant figure it out.

[danjr]

If you didn't want to have a distorted image or if you think they are a pain in the ass you could also have a regular text confirmation.

http://www.theqclan.com/upload/notbot2.jpg

This one isn't 100% effective but I'd say about 99.9% :cool:

Also, I don't know how but I noticed theres some letters in THE BJG FORUM banner that are filled in black and I filled them in dark grey. It's pretty subtle .. I don't know how I saw that. See if you can tell the difference.

http://www.theqclan.com/upload/bjj.jpg

By the way, my name is Dan. My middle and last initials are J and R but danjr sounds like danger, and I guess thats kinda neat.

[Ryan]

If you didn't want to have a distorted image or if you think they are a pain in the ass you could also have a regular text confirmation.

http://www.theqclan.com/upload/notbot2.jpg

This one isn't 100% effective but I'd say about 99.9% :cool:

Also, I don't know how but I noticed theres some letters in THE BJG FORUM banner that are filled in black and I filled them in dark grey. It's pretty subtle .. I don't know how I saw that. See if you can tell the difference.

http://www.theqclan.com/upload/bjj.jpg

By the way, my name is Dan. My middle and last initials are J and R but danjr sounds like danger, and I guess thats kinda neat.

Thats a cool username.

Also, that is pretty cool about the NOBOT thing but how many of the spammers are actually bots?

[danjr]

You never know about spammers. The ones I've seen make like 20 posts in less than a minute. The thing with a code like that is a human can read the distorted images or the NOTBOT thing. They are both designed to keep bots out but there isn't really a surefire way to keep people out. I think the NOTBOT is sort of a happy medium: keeps bots out and isn't frustrating to fill out.

But like I said, its not always effective, so the 15 post/no link idea might be your best bet. I'd suggest trying one idea and if that doesn't work then try the other.

[Ryan]

You never know about spammers. The ones I've seen make like 20 posts in less than a minute. The thing with a code like that is a human can read the distorted images or the NOTBOT thing. They are both designed to keep bots out but there isn't really a surefire way to keep people out. I think the NOTBOT is sort of a happy medium: keeps bots out and isn't frustrating to fill out.

But like I said, its not always effective, so the 15 post/no link idea might be your best bet. I'd suggest trying one idea and if that doesn't work then try the other.

I think this board only allows 1 post every so many seconds.

[danjr]

Yet, even with links disabled you still have a post to delete... this gets messy :(

[Ryan]

Yet, even with links disabled you still have a post to delete... this gets messy :(

My initial reason for starting this thread was to inform those who do not realize that those links are filled with viruses. That is all Tom and Ari need is to have sites known to carry viruses and have people avoid them. Another thing, the spam has links that say "Screw President Bush" as the title but you put your cursor on it and it says "www.banglivegoats.com" and tons of viruses to boot.

I think any type of protection is better than none but nothing is fool proof. If someone wants to spam they will. We just have to delete, ban and IP ban.

[Ari Bolden]

Mods:

Make sure to delete the spam posts and ban the users as well.

cheers
Ari

[Ryan]

how do you ban users? I couldn't find that option

[Ari Bolden]

FOr Super Mods:

Scroll down to the Mod link at the bottom of the page
Enter your password
Goto the Ban User link on the left
Paste in the user name in the box (I usually copy the users name before I go there)
Choose "Never lift ban"
Click Ok

[Dondo]

thx, i was having trouble finding that too

[michaelwbray]

I haven't run a website with a forum for a couple of years now, and the spam was no where near as bad as it is now. What I used to do was:

Keep vBulletin up to date with the latest version. 3.6.8 is out now. They are always looking to improve the software to get rid of spam.

I used to work closely with other webmasters, and add the list of IP's they had banned to the list that I had banned. That made a big difference.

Also - the dickhead spammers are getting good at developing OCR software that can read the captchas, even with the lines and stuff through them. I used to use ask a fairly basic question which they had to answer. e.g.

What is the name of the planet we are living on? answer: earth

spam bots would fail this question all the time. Have the program randomly choose from about 15 questions like the one above.

Email validation when they sign up is important. Have it so that a link isn't provided in the email they recieve back, cause they are smart and there program gets around this. Instead, have the email send them instructions on where to go and what to type in on that page to have their account activated.

Lastly, putting the forum on a different directory on the server can make it hard to find.

bjjgear.com/forum or /forums or /community etc is where they are programmed to look.

bjjgear.com/bjjgeartalk is something they aren't programmed to look for by default.

Other then that, having as many mods on top of it as you can helps. You can't beat human interaction.

[michaelwbray]

Just a to give you a push in the right direction from what I posted above...

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=124828&highlight=stop+spam - That add on there will allow you to make someone answer questions before they can sign up to get around the captcha reading bots.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=133826&highlight=stop+spam - That add on there will allow you to stop someone posting links unless they have already made a certain amount of posts. You can set that amount. I think you can make it so that they have to have done a certain amount of posts before they can do other keywords, so you could ban

http://, XXX, Viagra, Tits, Horny Teenagers

That would stop posts from members with less then 5 posts if they contain any of the above.

[Ryan]

Since we bulked up the mods the average spam existence is between 1-20 minutes. Today, I found one for an hour and a half but it is now gone. The hour and a half thing is rare so the mod thing is working. Those links seem good. YOu may want to talk to Tom about it and see what he thinks.

[michaelwbray]

Yeah - It hasn't been too bad actually. Still - If you can put automated procedures in place to save the mods the trouble, they can spend more time chatting and less time deleting spam. The programs listed have already been made, only takes 10 mins to get them installed and running.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=123002

That one seems like the best for limiting link posting based on post count.

[Tom Gavrilos]

Just a to give you a push in the right direction from what I posted above...

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=124828&highlight=stop+spam - That add on there will allow you to make someone answer questions before they can sign up to get around the captcha reading bots.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=133826&highlight=stop+spam - That add on there will allow you to stop someone posting links unless they have already made a certain amount of posts. You can set that amount. I think you can make it so that they have to have done a certain amount of posts before they can do other keywords, so you could ban

http://, XXX, Viagra, Tits, Horny Teenagers

That would stop posts from members with less then 5 posts if they contain any of the above.


I am very thankful for all this because it is great info and I am not a webmaster BY ANY STRETCH:D I will however forward this post to my webmaster.

Ryan is right though the guys have been kicking butt I used to erase tons now they get to it so fast I can barely even find any to remove myself!

[batsugan]

Thanks for looking out for us. Its almost a little flattering to think that these forums are getting big enough traffic to attract spammers. But I'd like to catch the guys who write up the programs for spamming.