2013 Spammer Thread

James Burk · 2013-02-11 01:09:32

Hi all,

Please use this thread to report spam or any other suspicious activity. You can also use the "Report" links within every post. We do read & act on those.

Thanks,
-James

JoshNH4H · 2018-02-05 11:20:41

The user Stanislawa has posted some lewd spam on our forums. I have permabanned them but it seems that I do not have the permissions to delete their posts.

Edit: I can delete their posts in every forum but this one.

Last edited by JoshNH4H (2018-02-05 11:22:44)

jburk · 2018-02-05 12:07:23

Taken care of.

JoshNH4H · 2018-02-05 12:13:54

Thanks!

SpaceNut · 2018-02-05 21:17:05

Sorry could only watch it happen while at work....

SpaceNut · 2019-01-23 17:46:13

Like the post above this one, there was not much I could do from where I work....

Kbd512 wrote:

Please remove this advertising content for fake / illegal passports, Visa cards, etc. Perhaps we should have some sort of content filter that queues up any content for review that contains certain keywords or patterns prior to posting it. That could easily be part of the submission logic and there's likely hooks or API's for doing that. I know that there's a way to use regular expressions within the software you're using to do that. I've never done that for bulletin board software, but I've done it on E-mail servers and within databases.

Thanks,
kbd512

That is something that I can meantion as to how frequent we are getting these.

kbd512 · 2019-01-23 18:06:03

SpaceNut,

Do a Google search on regular expressions to learn about how to use them to filter questionable content. Anything that talks about passports, other government identification documents, driver's licenses, or marijuana products is automatically suspect. That sort of content generally has little or nothing to do with aerospace science and technology or space exploration, which is what this forum is all about.

SpaceNut · 2019-01-23 18:15:15

The filter script needs to be aprroved by the FluxBB and they do have some things already and its a matter of getting it installed on the server the board rides on.
Message was sent to address the issue, to that Admin level but I hear you as its one more attack that could take down the forum again....as it happened in 2008 ish time frame.. We were down for nearly 2 years and while we have recovered the data to put back its just time consuming as its board topic areas were different than they are now.

elderflower · 2019-01-24 04:54:04

Multiple posts with the same content could be picked up and used to identify things like yesterday's fake document posts.

Oldfart1939 · 2019-01-24 11:22:27

More garbage today, as well.

GW Johnson · 2019-01-24 11:54:07

"Interplanetary Transportation" has a new thread in Russian, that is spam advertising construction equipment, according to the translation.

GW

SpaceNut · 2019-01-24 17:52:41

Cleaned up all four perpetrators

kbd512 · 2019-01-25 11:54:25

SpaceNut,

These spammers are so obnoxious that I finally broke down and started going through the code for FluxBB.

The affected portion of the submission logic that we can use to stop these spammers is thus:

if ($pun_config['o_censoring'] == '1')
{
$cur_post['subject'] = censor_words($cur_post['subject']);
$cur_post['message'] = censor_words($cur_post['message']);
}

Please add "passport" to the list of censor words for the "censor_words" function to search for in both the subject and message contained in the "$cur_post" collection / associative array variable prior to posting to the forum. If we need to take it a step further and merely delay posting for moderator approval to determine if the keyword was used in a legitimate post / context, please let me know and I'll hunt down some code to do that or write it myself.

The actual code files that must be modified is either "functions.php" or "post.php" and "edit.php". We need to alter how "censor_words" functions to preclude acceptance of the submission. Alternatively, we just modify "post.php" and "edit.php" to return an error message to anyone who posts or edits a post containing one of the censor words. The "cache_censoring.php" file should be generated from the TABLE named CENSORING in the database, so we're ultimately going to add rows to "CENSORING ( ID, SEARCH_FOR, REPLACE_WITH )" and then alter some of the aforementioned code to dump the post for moderator review or outright reject it to preclude what is most likely spam from junking up the database. We can do that with censor word values from a pre-generated flat file, which is how "CENSORING" gets loaded, or at least that's what "install.php" appears to do.

// How we could potentially use regular expressions to mitigate the spammers
$censoring_regex = ".+c_word1|c_word2|c_word_3.+";
if (preg_match($censoring_regex, $cur_post['subject'])) {
message($lang_common['No permission'], false, 'Your post was flagged for censored content and moderator review.');
}

SpaceNut · 2019-01-26 18:14:25

Good news IT for Mars Society has time to take care of this over the weekend.
Thanks and appreciation to kdb512 as we are working on it with priority.

elderflower · 2019-01-27 11:27:32

Hope this works!

Void · 2019-02-04 15:18:51

You sure have lots of cooties today.

SpaceNut · 2019-02-04 17:27:29

Just got home from work but will check each post...

Void · 2019-02-04 17:33:21

Not a complaint or a criticism.

Thank You for your hard work SpaceNut.

SpaceNut · 2019-03-28 17:07:51

This is the second time I have seen the HEY HEY HEY topic posting

tahanson43206 wrote:

For SpaceNut ... just curious ... who's been banning recent registrants? Is that being done by someone other than yourself?
Did you ever hear back on the question about vetting applications for membership? Is it considered more trouble than it would be worth?
(th)

It would seem like our site is just some sort of joke to post on....

No only silence...

SpaceNut · 2019-05-25 09:35:29

tahanson43206 wrote:

Today on Mars:
Of possible local interest:
9 new ID's were registered yesterday (May 24 Earth Calendar)
Of those, NONE have been banned as of 10:55 Eastern Standard Time US
However, an ambitious advertiser from Manhattan has been banned already today.
Congratulations to the alert administrator who caught the 24 messages.
Wouldn't it be amazing if all that energy were invested in the human space enterprise!

Now one more has registered. Took a peek at the emails to find several were from the same servers noted for spammers. A few appear to be real as they show resemblance of a name nto being a computer generated string of characters...

SpaceNut · 2019-05-25 19:01:24

Just got back from the days travels and only found 2 fake document spammers of which these were not from the days newly registered...

SpaceNut · 2020-08-24 17:01:47

There are new reports

I know what would do is quote the post in the report function.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2013-02-11 01:09:32

2013 Spammer Thread

#2 2018-02-05 11:20:41

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#3 2018-02-05 12:07:23

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#4 2018-02-05 12:13:54

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#5 2018-02-05 21:17:05

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#6 2019-01-23 17:46:13

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#7 2019-01-23 18:06:03

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#8 2019-01-23 18:15:15

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#9 2019-01-24 04:54:04

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#10 2019-01-24 11:22:27

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#11 2019-01-24 11:54:07

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#12 2019-01-24 17:52:41

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#13 2019-01-25 11:54:25

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#14 2019-01-26 18:14:25

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#15 2019-01-27 11:27:32

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#16 2019-02-04 15:18:51

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#17 2019-02-04 17:27:29

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#18 2019-02-04 17:33:21

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#19 2019-03-28 17:07:51

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#20 2019-05-25 09:35:29

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#21 2019-05-25 19:01:24

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

#22 2020-08-24 17:01:47

Re: 2013 Spammer Thread

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