Spam posting attack

We seem to be under quite a little Korean (I think) spamming attack of late.

What I don't quite understand is how these spammers get approved to post in the first place. I thought all new posters were "on approval" until they established that they were real people/not spammers? We should do something about that if that's not the case. It's easier for a spammer to flood our forum with crap than it is for a recent member to put up a buy/sell ad.

Now that's what I call SERVICE!

Yeah, wow!!! That was quite a storm that hit for a bit.

I sure don't understand how they got to so much so fast but it seems those in control got the ship back on track pretty fast.

Well done and congratulations to those in control.

Never saw a thing lol!

The software puts a lot of things into moderation when there are posts with a multiple links in there. But spammers work around that pretty quickly by posting a few posts with just text and and then bombard the latter posts with links. Thankfully, when we find and ban these spammers, we can delete all of their posts in one shot.

We definitely were under some kind of Asian spam and junk attack. I had to go into the Administrative control panel and data base to remove the posts (75 in all). No real way to prevent those kinds of attacks when the person or persons create an account and then proceed to hit us.

chas_m said:

Now that's what I call SERVICE!

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Well, thank you chas.

Well, sure there is ... new members are automatically placed on moderation and their posts must be approved first (at least for a short while). Some very determined spammers might be able to work around that, but I suspect that would be very very few indeed. Just let new joiners know in the email when they sign up that this is for spam protection.

Wow. I missed it all. Must have happened while I was handling the Sunday chat. Just as well I'm not sure my left arm was up to swinging the ban hammer that many times.

Slydude said:

Wow. I missed it all. Must have happened while I was handling the Sunday chat. Just as well I'm not sure my left arm was up to swinging the ban hammer that many times.

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You couldn't anyway. There's a limit to how many Spam posts can be deleted with the ban process. When I banned the spammer, the system told me I had to go into the Admin panel and remove the posts, which I did. And no, I thankfully didn't have to remove them one at a time.

I guess i missed it too although I did note a couple of "other" language posts a while back with multiple threads and now they're gone, so much for my powers of observation, blinked an I missed it.:Blushing:

chas_m said:

Well, sure there is ... new members are automatically placed on moderation and their posts must be approved first (at least for a short while). Some very determined spammers might be able to work around that, but I suspect that would be very very few indeed. Just let new joiners know in the email when they sign up that this is for spam protection.

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There are several safeguards for new members that will put at least the first several posts into moderation, but even though they are relatively innocuous, it seems like a lot of legit new members are put off (or very much confused) based on the feedback we receive. If we put all posts into moderation with no systematic adjudication, we'd turn off or confuse the heck out a lot more folks. That's not the kind of community we're trying to foster here.

There are a number of software products that spammers use to attack forums like this one, and you can always tell when a new version is released as you'll get a sudden influx from specific IPs. At that point, we shuffle the deck around a bit until the next update. It's a cat and mouse game. And though it can be an inconvenience, I think we have a fairly effective system... and of course, when things fall through the cracks, we remedy it quickly as you've noted.

Thanks for explaining the rationale, guys. It's a pity people are confused by new moderation -- perhaps a fuller explanation in the greeting email might help with that, but yes you guys do a pretty good job of keeping the spam out the manual way -- just trying to lighten your load a bit.

chscag said:

We definitely were under some kind of Asian spam and junk attack. I had to go into the Administrative control panel and data base to remove the posts (75 in all). No real way to prevent those kinds of attacks when the person or persons create an account and then proceed to hit us.

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Actually there is, by setting new account posts to require approval before appearing for a temporary amount of time. This will allow you to catch and remove spam posts before they disrupt the community and at the same time those who are actually interested in being thoughtful participants will stand out because they will have the patience to wait out the moderation period.

HalfDemon said:

Actually there is, by setting new account posts to require approval before appearing for a temporary amount of time. This will allow you to catch and remove spam posts before they disrupt the community and at the same time those who are actually interested in being thoughtful participants will stand out because they will have the patience to wait out the moderation period.

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In an ideal world that might work, but a lot of users come to the forums and joint to post their question and get answers pretty quickly. Those who like the answers they get or the "feeling" about the forum stick around to become long term users. However, putting limitations on how long after a user registers that they can post, usually just turns them away.

The forum does do a e-mail verification and tries to be smart about the things that need to be put into moderation before being sent out..

We have a draw a balance between being the service people want us to be while keeping the riff-raff out..

I agree entirely, Ashwin. I think the Forum "authorities" get the balance right and do a great job. There is no doubt that some people are in urgent need of help and their desperation comes through in their posts. Lose them and they're gone for good.

Ian

Raz0rEdge said:

In an ideal world that might work, but a lot of users come to the forums and joint to post their question and get answers pretty quickly. Those who like the answers they get or the "feeling" about the forum stick around to become long term users. However, putting limitations on how long after a user registers that they can post, usually just turns them away.

The forum does do a e-mail verification and tries to be smart about the things that need to be put into moderation before being sent out..

We have a draw a balance between being the service people want us to be while keeping the riff-raff out..

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NO, it wouldn't just be effective in "an ideal world" but rather in a community where folks aren't looking for fast tech support assistance.
A concieveable argument, I'll concede that I should have been more thoughtful of that and find the fast and savvy response to this situation quite efficient(even if the moderation system were a conceivable option).