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ptrowski
03-31-2009, 11:11 AM
I have not noticed any posts yet but alot of the recent members have names that are made up or follow certain patterns and their profiles are obviously fake and locations are highly suspect.

Is someone trying to bog down the site????

burris
03-31-2009, 11:21 AM
I have not noticed any posts yet but alot of the recent members have names that are made up or follow certain patterns and their profiles are obviously fake and locations are highly suspect.

Is someone trying to bog down the site????

I do see some difficult names appearing, but if you look at the member list at the bottom, they all appear to be legitimate.

ptrowski
03-31-2009, 11:25 AM
Really? A lot of the occupations are listed as "Man" and the locations are highly suspect.
Yesterday they were following a 4 letter and 4 number convention, today they are different. I even saw a signature as "free cigarettes, click here".

No biggie, just a heads up to the admins.

VOIPoTim
03-31-2009, 11:57 AM
It's possible. We're a target for a lot of attacks given our affiliation with HostGator (1.8 million websites means even a 1% rate of unhappy users is a 18K people out to get us).

If any posts come up, we'll take care of them.

ptrowski
03-31-2009, 12:06 PM
Very true! Just thought you might want to know as it seemed very suspect.

chpalmer
03-31-2009, 10:51 PM
member pages are a popular way to spam. At the height on a forum I admin for we had about 15 a day coming in. Larger forums get many more. Mainly Bots designed for that purpose. All you can do is delete them as they appear and hope for a forum upgrade that closes any holes they use...

VOIPoJustin
04-01-2009, 12:27 AM
Spam -- A never ending battle.

Sometimes 'captcha'/etc filters within the registration process can help a bit (if the bot registration attempt is completely automated).

Somewhat on topic: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/spam-back-to-94-of-all-e-mail/

KenH
04-01-2009, 10:38 AM
You know, I've wondered about this for some time. The usernames don't follow normal conventions - a lot are cryptic combinations and most users don't choose usernames like that.

ptrowski
04-01-2009, 11:29 AM
That's what I was thinking. The locations are all over the world and their occupation etc is "Man".

VOIPoJustin
04-01-2009, 12:05 PM
Just added reCAPTCHA image/word verification to the signup process, so this should alleviate the barrage of suspect registrations.

The reCAPTCHA project/idea is actually pretty neat, you can read about it here:
http://recaptcha.net/learnmore.html

ptrowski
04-01-2009, 12:08 PM
That is actually pretty cool. Thanks for the link!

VOIPoJustin
04-01-2009, 12:17 PM
It also looks like the bulk of the bot/spam registrations came from just a handfull of (now banned) IP Addresses:

Example Username ---- IP Address
xfchbgfv ---- 218.106.90.38
vizirisuz ---- 79.120.55.82
BHhdNMGFb ---- 194.8.75.64
hdxbk666276 ---- 221.194.37.5
klmn254 ---- 60.168.93.12
JWLpWQUPV ---- 194.8.74.130
hdxbk666276 ---- 119.27.163.155

ptrowski
04-01-2009, 12:22 PM
Nice! I guess my bill will be in the mail to you guys.

chpalmer
04-01-2009, 10:36 PM
It also looks like the bulk of the bot/spam registrations came from just a handfull of (now banned) IP Addresses:

Example Username ---- IP Address
xfchbgfv ---- 218.106.90.38
vizirisuz ---- 79.120.55.82
BHhdNMGFb ---- 194.8.75.64
hdxbk666276 ---- 221.194.37.5
klmn254 ---- 60.168.93.12
JWLpWQUPV ---- 194.8.74.130
hdxbk666276 ---- 119.27.163.155

I wish all of ours were that easy. My latest... AnnaBeason

Looks legit till you google her IP addy and finds she has been spamming the world... Another day in paradise...

ptrowski
04-14-2009, 10:20 AM
Looks like there were some more in the last few days. Man it is never ending!

VOIPoJustin
04-14-2009, 10:24 AM
Always a battle.

usa2k
04-14-2009, 01:37 PM
Did you stop using CAPTCHA?

VOIPoJustin
04-14-2009, 01:57 PM
Nope, still enabled. Could be a case of the following (becoming more popular):

1. Bots find the forum.
2. Humans register.
3. Bot updates/account spams.

Vumes
04-14-2009, 07:33 PM
EVERYONE please welcome our latest member:

BlorryBrooxia

:rolleyes:

I am going to go out on a limb and say that this might be spam...

NY Tel Guy
04-15-2009, 12:26 PM
EVERYONE please welcome our latest member:

BlorryBrooxia

:rolleyes:

I am going to go out on a limb and say that this might be spam...You've located my dear, dear long lost Aunt Blorry!:p

chpalmer
04-15-2009, 08:17 PM
You've located my dear, dear long lost Aunt Blorry!:p


Couz ??!! :p