Spam Bots

[Erdrick The Hero 969]

http://www.woodus.com/forums/index.php?/profile/85682-millahowens1/ This user is a spam bot. Is the new users forum disabled because of the update?

[eal 2,647]

There has been at least a spam bot a day making posts since the update.

[Mefista 109]

I've got spam from one on my profile even, tho I reported it and now it's gone...don't remember the username tho.

[Woodus 1,656]

I was hoping the new CAPTCHA would help weed out the bots. Let's see how it goes for a month or so (these could be accounts that registered before the new CAPTCHA)

[Erdrick The Hero 969]

Here's another one: http://www.woodus.com/forums/index.php?/profile/85688-brookevine2/

Joined 1 Hour ago.

Edited November 29, 2017 by Erdrick The Hero

[Woodus 1,656]

5 hours ago, Erdrick The Hero said:

Here's another one: http://www.woodus.com/forums/index.php?/profile/85688-brookevine2/

Joined 1 Hour ago.

How do you know that one is, they haven't posted anything?

[King Zenith 641]

They posted spam, linking to a site called top healthy diet or something like that. I deleted the topic and flagged the spammer an hour or so ago.

[Woodus 1,656]

2 minutes ago, King Zenith said:

They posted spam, linking to a site called top healthy diet or something like that. I deleted the topic and flagged the spammer an hour or so ago.

Ahh gotcha, thank you.  Do I need to put the validation forum back into play, thing is we may have missed some real people that way too, so I am not sure what the best solution is.

[King Zenith 641]

I'm ok to let this play out for a month or so like you suggested to see if these current bots registered before the new CAPTCHA.  That being said, would it be possible to test that out by looking at one of these recent spammers and checking their registration date?

[Erdrick The Hero 969]

6 hours ago, Erdrick The Hero said:

Here's another one: http://www.woodus.com/forums/index.php?/profile/85688-brookevine2/

Joined 1 Hour ago.

The profile page shows how long ago they joined.

[Woodus 1,656]

Yeah saw that on that one that it was new. I guess we can see if it gets worse or not.

[YangustheLegendaryBandit 3,580]

We have a new one.

http://www.woodus.com/forums/index.php?/topic/37541-httpquicksupplementfactcomfocus-zx1/&tab=comments#comment-505933

Edited November 30, 2017 by YangustheLegendaryBandit

[King Zenith 641]

Not any more

[Woodus 1,656]

I still cannot believe this site generates enough traffic that they put that much time and effort into registering bots here.

[King Zenith 641]

How do other websites address this issue?  I can't imagine the Dragon's Den is the only site to be afflicted with bot-users.  Is a validation forum the only way to go, or is there a better system than CAPTCHA?

[YangustheLegendaryBandit 3,580]

1 hour ago, Woodus said:

I still cannot believe this site generates enough traffic that they put that much time and effort into registering bots here.

The Den hasn't really generated much traffic since the update. Been real quite lately apart from all these spam bots.

[YangustheLegendaryBandit 3,580]

45 minutes ago, King Zenith said:

How do other websites address this issue?  I can't imagine the Dragon's Den is the only site to be afflicted with bot-users.  Is a validation forum the only way to go, or is there a better system than CAPTCHA?

One system I've seen is one where you are asked, "Are you a robot?" You click on the check box to confirm you aren't, then respond to the picture questions it asks such as, "Identify all the signs in these pictures."

Don't know if that's the kind of thing you're talking about, but I assume it's a secruty system to make sure spam bots don't get through.

Edited November 30, 2017 by YangustheLegendaryBandit

[King Zenith 641]

Yep, exactly.  I wondered if there is a more robust one out there, or if it even matters.  Perhaps someone just manually registers a bot and then sets it loose, rendering any form of CAPTCHA ineffective.

[Sumez 87]

2 hours ago, Woodus said:

I still cannot believe this site generates enough traffic that they put that much time and effort into registering bots here.

No one is targeting this site manually, they are just firing spreadshots, infiltrating random sites across the internet.

By using established forum software, there's also a good chance the creators of spambots programmed them specifically to know how to register and post messages on any forum using this particular software. But even when I was running a forum built entirely on custom programming, they overran the place as soon as they got the chance.

[Woodus 1,656]

yeah, that is why I hoped the CAPTHCA v2 would get around that. Hell I cannot pass the thing half the time to make it happy for other sites, not sure how bots are getting past it

[redneckpride4ever 320]

Long ago when I first joined here I was messaged by a bot for Adult Friend Finder. Ahh, the good old days, when DQ4 DS was new and I was harassed by a fake naked lady.

[Mimas 172]

Something like this might help. https://www.sitepoint.com/easy-spam-prevention-using-hidden-form-fields/

[Woodus 1,656]

Sounds good, but I cannot even figure out the CSS to make a dark theme, not sure how I would implement that

[Mimas 172]

Do you have the ability to add any more fields to the sign up page? Just a question like "Type the number one thousand " [_________]

can work as a Turing test to keep out some of the Spam Bots (assuming you can check that the answer always has to be 1000 or 1,000). 

[Erdrick The Hero 969]

4 hours ago, Mimas said:

Do you have the ability to add any more fields to the sign up page? Just a question like "Type the number one thousand " [_________]

can work as a Turing test to keep out some of the Spam Bots (assuming you can check that the answer always has to be 1000 or 1,000). 

There are countries that swap the usage of commas and decimal points, right? This would also need to be accounted for.