We've had previous spam outbreaks in the past, and things really quieted down for a bit, so whatever you guys had done previously, really did work... for a while anyway. I'm wondering if there's any current effort to curb the recent outbreak. I realize that this is probably a case of the spammers becoming a tad more clever, and I don't expect a permanent solution (hit-men and nuclear weapons being both illegal and impractical). I just would like to know if you guys are working on it.
There's a new version of the xenforo forum software coming out very soon (I believe it's on the final testing phases) so we're kind of waiting for that as it will have new integrated tools to take care of it. Moom is also a mod now to take care of the spam when I'm not there or asleep, so that will help.
You should just make everyone solve a capcha the first five times or so that they post on the forum. The spam is obviously computer generated; one would expect a human spammer would make more sense (even if we assume them to be both unfamiliar with the english language and stricken with an untreated mental illness)
Not really viable. Check these out for why. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/420200/how-spammers-use-low-cost-labor-to-solve-captchas/ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/technology/26captcha.html?_r=0 http://www.itworld.com/answers/topi...am-bots-make-it-past-captcha-post-their-wares http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/01/breaking-captcha-with-automated-humans.html And these were only in the first six results when I searched. Plus, I remember reading about some program that was developed that can read these things even easier than a human can. I know that I usually have a hard time with them and I can read books upside down almost as well as I can right side up.
That and we had a captcha to register before and it didn't stop them. (We might still have it, I don't recall)
The only way to fix the problem permanently would be to make it only possible for people to register if they got a recommendation from one of the existing members with "x posts minimum", which would require them to search one of us out and ask for a recommendation (and prove that they are human every single time they try to create an account). But, as it usually happens, such a thing would be more cumbersome to people who want to register normally than for those who want to create a lot of accounts to spam. It's like burning a wheat field spanning tens of acres to deal with a few rats.
These look like the same bots that hit my forum. Let me know what your solution is: mine, at this point, has been to restrict new members to invite-only, which is terrible.
It's nothing more than a hearsay coming from me, but I think Daynab mentioned something about making the registrations mod-approved.
If you use the Xenforo forum software, the solution was to upgrade to version 2.0 1.2 which just came out. If you use something else, I honestly don't know, maybe look up your specific software. Also: up to 300 spam registration blocks.
