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#401 2011-11-25 00:35:38

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,526
Website

Re: Spammer

Well, I mean that was simply awful, and obviously unsustainable as a forum.  Even now the rate of spammer signups is quite high. 

I've seen forums where you have to answer a simple common-knowledge question to register.  That would probably cut down the rate of spammer registrations by a significant amount.


-Josh

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#402 2011-11-25 02:59:54

Glandu
Member
From: France
Registered: 2011-11-23
Posts: 106

Re: Spammer

Whose member of Appolo 11 did not land on the moon?


[i]"I promise not to exclude from consideration any idea based on its source, but to consider ideas across schools and heritages in order to find the ones that best suit the current situation."[/i] (Alistair Cockburn, Oath of Non-Allegiance)

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#403 2011-11-25 03:11:42

James Burk
Executive Director
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2011-11-17
Posts: 155
Website

Re: Spammer

Josh Cryer wrote:

Yes, they're all spammers. We are only using ReCAPTCHA as a spam deterrent currently.

That's actually not true smile  And in a couple days will DEFINATELY not be true. wink


James L. Burk
Executive Director, The Mars Society
jburk@marssociety.org
+1 (206) 601-7143

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#404 2011-11-25 10:26:39

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,526
Website

Re: Spammer

Glandu wrote:

Whose member of Appolo 11 did not land on the moon?


Michael Collins.


-Josh

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#405 2011-11-26 03:17:00

Rxke
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: Spammer

You're clearly a spambot. A human and grammar nazi would reply: 'WHICH member' tongue

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#406 2011-11-26 09:19:48

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,526
Website

Re: Spammer

lol didn't even notice it.  That's not necessarily common sense, but it is easily wiki-able.  The question I saw on the website I was on was "Who is Britney Spears?," with the answer being "A Woman who sings songs."


-Josh

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#407 2011-11-28 03:41:30

Glandu
Member
From: France
Registered: 2011-11-23
Posts: 106

Re: Spammer

Sorry for my crappy english. I'm native french speaker, & my first foreign language was german. It's easy Wiki-able, but someone who makes the research is likely to be interested in the topic.


[i]"I promise not to exclude from consideration any idea based on its source, but to consider ideas across schools and heritages in order to find the ones that best suit the current situation."[/i] (Alistair Cockburn, Oath of Non-Allegiance)

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#408 2011-11-28 04:11:48

Rxke
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: Spammer

:oops:  Sorry Glandu, I did *not* try to make fun of you, your English is *not* crappy, I'd even say it  is better than a lot of native speakers on the internet!
I'm Dutch speaking myself, French being my second language. smile

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#409 2011-11-29 21:42:59

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,716

Re: Spammer

Newest batch of yup you guessed it

kedvdeshca New member 0 Today
krbrfpobcd New member 0 Today
naoraaenly New member 0 Today
yogwdrfnuf New member 0 Today
vnyseowcag New member 0 Today
jgdpllcvld New member 0 Today
cywichpzku New member 0 Today
stkpoblgzu New member 0 Today
saybltnhoe New member 0 Today
azbdrnykzg New member 0 Today
Hotounnigoutt New member 0 Today

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#410 2011-11-29 23:16:38

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,526
Website

Re: Spammer

Glandu- Ideally, it would be something that every human would know, but no spambot.  Perhaps a logical catchpa, or something?


-Josh

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#411 2011-11-30 03:43:54

Glandu
Member
From: France
Registered: 2011-11-23
Posts: 106

Re: Spammer

JoshNH4H, SpammerHunter wrote:

Glandu- Ideally, it would be something that every human would know, but no spambot.  Perhaps a logical catchpa, or something?

could be. The thing would be that it would be a lot of questions, be it "is the triangle blue or green?"(while embedded in a red square) or "who was the first Russian in space?". But if there is only one answer, bots will always answer "Collins". So my first idea, I fear, was not good.

Could be always the same question - but that changes often, maybe every day or two. That would be a tedious work to make them, though. I'm not sure, though. Those who work with brute force would break any question.


[i]"I promise not to exclude from consideration any idea based on its source, but to consider ideas across schools and heritages in order to find the ones that best suit the current situation."[/i] (Alistair Cockburn, Oath of Non-Allegiance)

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#412 2011-11-30 03:52:19

Rxke
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: Spammer

that 'find the kitty' captcha thing was a cool idea. Kittenauth, IIRC

Square of 3X3 images, animals,, spot the  cat(s).

yep:

Kittenauth


http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2006 … _bett.html

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#413 2011-11-30 09:53:24

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,526
Website

Re: Spammer

Glandu-Something to keep in mind is that (I don't think) anyone programs spambots just to screw with newmars, given that as far as forums go we aren't that big.  Even if our catchpa could be automated pretty easily, if it's unique I would be surprised if someone modified their spambot just to get through it.

That said, the find the kitty idea is, imho, fantastic, given that you would need an incredibly advanced spambot to get past it.


-Josh

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#414 2011-11-30 11:31:45

Midoshi
Member
From: Colorado
Registered: 2007-07-14
Posts: 157

Re: Spammer

Assuming a bot just randomly picked 3 different images from the 9, that would filter out 98.8% of attempts.

Probability of random success:
3/9 x 2/8 x 1/7 = 1/84 ~ 1.2%


"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Albert Einstein

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#415 2011-11-30 12:06:26

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,526
Website

Re: Spammer

A 100fold reduction in spam attempts would plenty to make me happy.  We'd have to cycle the pictures occasionally, but there is no shortage of cat pictures on the Internet.

That's a hundredfold reduction assuming they know what to do, though, which is very possibly not the case for many of these spambots. 

I believe a lot of people saw what happened on the phpBB forum when there was no ReCATCHPA or email verification, right?  1500 spam signups in a week.  We can't catch them all, but if we get it down to one a month, who could possibly complain?  That is, so long as we don't keep legitimate users from signing up.


-Josh

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#416 2011-11-30 21:48:31

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Spammer

Apparently with the software they're using, ReCAPTCHA is brute forcible (they use OCR). So that explains why they're getting through it, it just requires a lot of processor power.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#417 2011-11-30 22:47:29

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,526
Website

Re: Spammer

Does that mean that the kitten-clicking ReCAPTCHA would be brute-forcible too?


-Josh

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#418 2011-11-30 23:06:38

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,716

Re: Spammer

Here is the latest attempt

UTBloorpory New member 0 Yesterday

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#419 2011-12-01 00:07:58

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Spammer

JoshNH4H, the probability of solving the kitten CATCHPA is decided by how many unique pictures of kittens you have, ultimately. If you only have 3 pictures of kittens then the software can do a comparison to whatever it has in its database. Solve it once and the software can solve it indefinitely. xrumer is apparently the software they use. Here's an interesting article on the subject.

BTW, thanks SpaceNut, but I'm checking the userlist daily, so you don't have to keep reporting them.

StopForumSpam submissions to date:
uY8Dl.png


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#420 2011-12-01 20:19:23

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,716

Re: Spammer

Thanks Josh as I was wondering about the ability to ban and remove posts that I once had but that is one less thing for me to deal with....

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#421 2011-12-07 06:03:54

Grypd
Member
From: Scotland, Europe
Registered: 2004-06-07
Posts: 1,879

Re: Spammer

Spammer registered today Viagra


Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.

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#422 2011-12-07 06:05:56

Rxke
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: Spammer

... Who's spamming all over. and you can only flag one post per minute, so we WILL get flooded sad

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#423 2011-12-07 06:07:43

Rxke
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: Spammer

Oh, and if a crawler (Google, Bing, Yahoo) catches those spammy posts, we'll pay dearly with ranking I'm afraid. Or am I mistaken?

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#424 2011-12-08 19:39:51

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Spammer

I zapped 'em all and banned gmail with a comment to send an email to admin to sign up. 20+ a day is too much, my fingers were dying every morning and every evening they'd be back. Should have much fewer spammers now.

Out of 192 spammer addresses, 190 were from gmail.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#425 2011-12-08 19:45:48

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,526
Website

Re: Spammer

Did we re-institute the requirement to click on a confirmation email as well as fill in a ReCAPTCHA?  It's a real shame to lose the legitimate users who have gmail accounts (such as yourself, if for whatever reason you were to choose to re-register now).

I'm not saying that it might not be necessary, and you absolutely should not have to do that much deleting of spammers.  But is there a way to do it without blocking gmail addresses outright?

Last edited by JoshNH4H (2011-12-08 19:46:13)


-Josh

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