Potential spammers?

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Potential spammers?

Postby enxio27 » Tue May 15, 2018 2:39 pm

A look at the listing of today's birthdays is interesting:

Congratulations to: Delazarmr (42), Newqnvtor (42), YorikTed (41), doubocEvamb (41), CobraSoldieroi (40), DomenikFlal (40), vipecRax (37), phoebekk3 (37), staceyrj4 (37), rolandgg16 (37), adrianaek60 (37), alexandriazv1 (37), monicall3 (37), vanessavr3 (37), shellyje16 (37), isabellekr2 (37), calliejh3 (37), maggiehr18 (37), beatrizkg3 (37), vickiegs60 (37), elinorgi69 (37), patrickzh1 (37), mandyyw69 (37), davegl2 (37), marquitals60 (37), jimmiedu4 (37), Agrippatots (36), AbeCags (35), Vincentslept (35), mauraub4 (35), anabc2 (35), warrenki4 (35), AnnaSedowa (34), Mariusel (34), Mymemetok (34), egineschUlp (34), Dargothrorm (34), Kamaknob (33), MyxirMulk (33), StevenAwady (33), CopperCit (33), Michaelensub (31), KennethKally (31), Dawsonsild (30), KennethKandy (30)


Lots of people turning 37 today, with very similarly constructed usernames. Some of the others look a little suspicious, as well. Hmmmmm. . .
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Re: Potential spammers?

Postby rjamil » Sat Jun 02, 2018 5:14 am

Hi,

I see today's birthday as abnormal too:

Code: Select all
Congratulations to: Loranvk (42), goldiejz69 (42), lillianzn4 (42), taniakt3 (42), BrentQueks (41), Treslottneem (41), Brodvlx (41), Novanox (41), beatrizyk11 (41), ChoesGow (40), Akaschaplug (40), DimaSdub (39), FalkJaf (39), kathyfj60 (38), UrkrassKl (38), Mcafsqertor (38), Muz_DUOua (37), FelicaJex (37), SeltImmer (36), MIAQtq (35), MIAIjp (35), MIATkk (35), MIAKhn (35), MIAMxw (35), MIAXbu (35), MIALyk (35), MIAHrg (35), MIAYsg (35), MIALen (35), MIAHtq (35), MIAAql (35), MIAPoz (35), MIADsn (35), MIADaq (35), MIAWju (35), MIAJzk (35), MIAQgm (35), MIANkh (35), MIAMdg (35), Benbilk (35), GennadiyJus (35), cathrynkq2 (34), maribelan11 (34), winifredoz16 (34), pedroiv1 (34), elbakb16 (34), robynaq18 (34), leonali2 (34), jasonpr3 (34), audreyuf18 (34), madelynuv18 (34), genevaiv3 (34), karladc60 (34), toddpe2 (34), BallockKn (34), RandallZef (33), Danfosvltsriz (32), Clarkreunk (30)


There are 20 names starting with MIA??? and created from different location with same 35 y/o (female IDs) and zero posts.
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re: potential spammers

Postby Pat-Moderator » Sun Jun 03, 2018 1:42 pm


    most new registrations
    are spammers

    as long as they remain silent,
    we ignore them.

      (we have enough work just banning the non-silent spammers.)
    we may need to re-think this policy
    if a silent spammer suddenly submits many posts---
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Re: re: potential spammers

Postby enxio27 » Sun Jun 03, 2018 1:44 pm

Pat-Moderator wrote:we may need to re-think this policy
if a silent spammer suddenly submits many posts---

I think that's their game plan--get registered, stay under the radar for a while, and then later on post a ton of spam.
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Re: re: potential spammers

Postby champagne » Sun Jun 03, 2018 1:58 pm

enxio27 wrote:
Pat-Moderator wrote:we may need to re-think this policy
if a silent spammer suddenly submits many posts---

I think that's their game plan--get registered, stay under the radar for a while, and then later on post a ton of spam.



As normally a registration should come just before a post, one possible easy way is to kill new registrations with no post after one week/month. A sleeping member would just have to redo the registration to become active.
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Re: Potential spammers?

Postby alansh » Sun Jun 03, 2018 5:56 pm

If you click on members, then click on Page 1 of, and enter 121 you can see that registrations suddenly increased to about 50 a day in late June 2017. Nearly all appear to have Jabber addresses. Many have unusual internet addresses and locations. It suddenly stopped around December for about a month, then started up again. It stopped again in early April. I don't see why you need Jabber addresses to send spam.
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Re: re: potential spammers

Postby enxio27 » Sun Jun 03, 2018 8:00 pm

champagne wrote:As normally a registration should come just before a post, one possible easy way is to kill new registrations with no post after one week/month. A sleeping member would just have to redo the registration to become active.

For starters, you could delete everyone who has been registered for more than a year with NO posts at all. We did that with a forum I used to moderate, and deleted probably 75% of the user database. Many had been registered far longer than a year without ever posting.
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re: spammers

Postby Pat-Moderator » Wed Jun 06, 2018 3:57 pm

alansh,
the silent spammers
simply imagine that the web-crawler
sees the URL in their profile.
(it does NOT.)

these do not bother me.

my concern is that a spammer can quickly pour 8 posts, or 120, into the queue, before any Moderator notices and bans him.

we should limit the queued posts to 2 per member.
or 3, definitely sufficient for a legitimate poster.
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Re: Potential spammers?

Postby JasonLion » Sun Jun 17, 2018 9:02 pm

Currently, the first two posts from any new member need to be approved manually, which is a little tedious for the moderators, but very effective at preventing spammers. The vast majority of posts requiring approval are spam.
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Re: Potential spammers?

Postby enxio27 » Mon Jun 18, 2018 5:32 pm

JasonLion wrote:Currently, the first two posts from any new member need to be approved manually, which is a little tedious for the moderators, but very effective at preventing spammers. The vast majority of posts requiring approval are spam.


Do you then block or delete the spammers?
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Re: Potential spammers?

Postby StrmCkr » Mon Jun 18, 2018 7:38 pm

Thought we built a anitspam bot based on grimlens setup... that did the tedious stuff for us.... (after the bot war on the old forum)

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Re: Potential spammers?

Postby enxio27 » Tue Jun 19, 2018 4:59 am

StrmCkr wrote:Thought we built a anitspam bot based on grimlens setup... that did the tedious stuff for us.... (after the bot war on the old forum)
Sweet!
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re: spammers

Postby Pat-Moderator » Tue Jun 19, 2018 6:55 am


    the tedious part is
    when a spammer quickly pours 8 posts, or 120, into the queue,
    before any Moderator notices and bans him

      it means
      carefully reviewing each 5 posts in the queue
      (and deleting max 5 at a time)

        possibly Administrator has a less-tedious tool

    we should limit the queued posts to 2 per member
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re: spammers

Postby Pat-Moderator » Mon Jan 07, 2019 1:13 pm

Pat-Moderator wrote:

    we should limit the queued posts to 2 per member

just now, i had to ban 11 spammers

    but they have left 136 posts in the queue,
    which must still be separately rejected

      makes it tough to find the legitimate posts
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Re: Potential spammers?

Postby Mathimagics » Mon Jan 07, 2019 7:22 pm

I use this forum a lot (you might well have noticed this 8-) ) and found myself recently observing the dubious "birthday lists" phenomenon...

Having studied the posts above, I have a new appreciation of the work of our learned colleagues, the moderators …

It seems to have occupied so much of Jason's time he has not found any time to post the annual appeal for contributions! :o

I will be sure to respond when he does, and I urge all regulars here to cough up too!
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