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bots spamming in my forum w/ human test!

  • Hi,

    I’ve had my forum up for a while now and havn’t had any problems with bots spamming ads. But now, sinece a few days ago, a number of bots have been able to register. I have human test from _ck_ activated.

    trendyhousewives .com is the url.

    Please help me!

    /Newform

Viewing 25 replies - 1 through 25 (of 25 total)
  • Try contacting her, or try changing something in the code so that the bots will be stopped once again.

    Either way, spam will always be there.


    stevendaily
    Participant

    @stevendaily

    I am having the same problem. It is the same spammer or technique as newform and just started a few hours ago.

    Same here, started 2 days ago.

    Email addresses from user are always gmail.

    Email addresses from user are always gmail

    And lo.tso.fun.nyd.ots in the address before the @ — the same idiots spamming at me. And I changed the Human Test plugin code a little to get a larger range of numbers for the little addition. So a simple editing of the plugin may not work.


    Ramiuz
    Participant

    @ramiuz

    Human test is not good enough no more.

    This EXACT question and problem has been raised many times here the last months.

    The best answer I can give you, which worked for me, is to combine Project Honey Pot, No Forum Spam, and reCaptcha.

    Disable Human Test when using those three.


    John James Jacoby
    Keymaster

    @johnjamesjacoby

    The problem is an ongoing one that even Matt has blogged about in recent past. Part of the reason they’re able to pass the human test it because they might be humans registering real accounts and making real posts. WordPress.org, bbPress.org, and BuddyPress.org all suffer from a similar problem. I’m about sick of it though. :)


    Rich Pedley
    Member

    @rich-pedley

    Captcha’s are a waste of time as so many of them have been hacked/cracked. Plus regular people hate them.

    I’ve found that the following system worked well:

    Akismet

    My update to an old plugin (not yet redone for bbPress) which restricts the number of links, and characters that people can post (until they have x posts).

    Plus user orientated report & hide spam – ie, if a post gets x reports it is hidden and marked for moderators to review.

    So even if spam gets through, users can quickly help mop things up. but I don’t worry about people signing up at all.


    DKB
    Participant

    @dkb

    I wonder what the rules for spam are. Sometimes a regular vistors post is caught by Akismet.

    I DO know this started 2 days ago and is getting worse by the minute.

    About a week ago I added a twitterfeed to my forum.

    Did that cause these problems?


    stevendaily
    Participant

    @stevendaily

    There is no twitterfeed on my forum and I have the problem.


    Ramiuz
    Participant

    @ramiuz

    Don´t listen to anyone reccomending Akisment for BBpress.

    It´s messed up, and not made for forums. Don´t use it.


    John James Jacoby
    Keymaster

    @johnjamesjacoby

    @Ramiuz – That’s not true at all.


    fleetadmiral
    Member

    @fleetadmiral

    I’ve got this exact problem too with the type of gmail accounts mentioned above. Trouble is, I am an admin of a forum without any FTP access (the designer went AWOL) so I have no way of installing plugins to the directory.

    As a temporary measure, I have used the already-installed Register Plus plugin to enforce admin authorisation of every new member.

    Yet despite implementing it last night, spammers are still able to register and post. Anyone know why this might be? The plugin is listed as active.


    ericakadisco
    Member

    @ericakadisco

    I’ve just started getting massive spam the last two days as well. I’ve been using reCAPTCHA and it seemed to be working up until recently. I can’t seem to use akismet, I don’t even see it in the list of plugins for my bbpress.

    Does anyone know of some type of plugin that would require admin approval for posts with links in them? That would go a long way for me.


    _ck_
    Participant

    @_ck_

    Yes I am seeing them defeat Human Test too.

    I will push an update to the svn tonight (Friday) so keep an eye out for a version update.

    Awesome ck, any updates yet?

    Also, in the mean time, I am blocking each new (spam) member and marking them BOZO.

    Am I waisting my time doing this?


    Ramiuz
    Participant

    @ramiuz

    John James Jacoby yes it is true.

    I wouldn´t say it if I had not experienced it.

    Akismet was made for blogging, and BBpress is not blogging.

    Akisment for BBpress will delete posts by normal people. And it won´t let you do anything about it. Infact, it won´t show you exactly what is deleting at all. It just keeps deleting stuff in its own, and keeps the keymaster in the dark.

    This made me especially angry when I managed to find out, that infact all Akismet had deleted, was normal posts. And not a single valid spam.

    So please stop reccomending this.

    If you have several thousands of members in your bbpress installation, you might accept losing a few posts. But if you´re trying to build a community, you must learn to value each post, each member makes.


    _ck_
    Participant

    @_ck_

    I updated it a couple of days ago but even I see a spammer about every other week.

    I have to assume it’s humans doing the account creation because it’s so cheap to get labor now, it might be semi automated where it fills out the info and allows the human to deal with the question.

    You’d think they’d figure out this is a waste of time but I guess they are looking for the sites where the postings stick around for awhile.

    I can deal with it once a week until I figure out another way to tackle them.

    By the way I don’t use akismet and I always recommend you disable the bozo feature which Sam made a plugin you can turn off at my request, because it just causes havoc with false positives.


    Rich Pedley
    Member

    @rich-pedley

    @Ramiuz Akismet works fine for forums. I use it on several as admin, and as Moderator. using it combined with the bozo plugin makes things a PITA for me, as there is no indication as to which is spam, and which is bozo – but that is a whole other issue.

    I would like to see proof that it deletes posts without your intervention (either via setting, or a.n.other plugin). because if that is indeed the case, then the plugin needs looking at.


    DKB
    Participant

    @dkb

    @Rich Pedley: on what basis marks Akismet a post as spam?


    Rich Pedley
    Member

    @rich-pedley

    I do not know but I would hazard a guess that it uses rules similar to Spam Assassin to start with. Then assesses against common features for other things that have marked as spam.


    Ramiuz
    Participant

    @ramiuz

    You just got pwnd Pedley.

    _CK_ SHould I be using Human test or recaptcha now?

    I can confirm that recaptcha almost prevented spammer completely, but I´ve had some spammers register still. Only a small percentage of what was before though.

    Somehow, even though their IP, name and email already exist in the databases for StopForumSpam and Project HoneyPot – they still manage to get through.


    Rich Pedley
    Member

    @rich-pedley

    I don’t need to know how akismet marks things as spam – but I noticed you didn’t answer my earlier question.


    Ramiuz
    Participant

    @ramiuz

    I´ve proven it enough times already. Not my fault you´re not informed properly.

    Just trust my judgements of Akismet, several people experiences the exact same thing, so it´s a known problem.


    cavenewt
    Participant

    @cavenewt

    I have a standalone 1.02 forum with a small specialized population.

    Human Test quit working (I seem to remember no one could register.) Recaptcha is ok for bots, but I think there are low-paid humans registering; I get like 30 registrations a day, and maybe 1 a week is legit. I use New User Notification Email which gives me the IP address of new registrants which I manually check against stopforumspam.com, but that’s a losing battle.

    Akismet is good about sequestering the spam, only marking a couple of false positives. The Posts area in Admin lets you un-spam those. I’m going to try to upgrade to v2 to see if that’s any better.

Viewing 25 replies - 1 through 25 (of 25 total)
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