Spam-bots and ad-bots

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This includes generic Oric talkings and things that are totaly unrelated but want to share with people here :)
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Dbug
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Spam-bots and ad-bots

Post by Dbug »

I finaly decided to remove the referal entries entirely, so now I use ban lists, and delete fake users on the spot. If you are unlucky enough to be in one of the following email lists, just tell me we will try to find a solution.

Banned email domains are:
- *@cashette.com
- *@ex3m.spb.ru
- *@fromru.com
- *@gawab.com
- *@isuisse.com
- *@mail.ru
- *@mail15.com
- *@usa.com
- *@yandex.ru

:idea: And by the way, it would be nice if people put some personal information, like where they come from, because when somebody registers with a three letter random nickname, does not post any messages, and link to some weird looking site, I can hardly imagine it's a legit person :p
Last edited by Dbug on Sat Jul 15, 2006 12:15 pm, edited 8 times in total.
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TheSpider
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Post by TheSpider »

Hiya Mickael,
Thanks for the heads up. I am an Admin on another forum (music based), and will keep my eye out.
Peter (TheSpider) Paterson
A Scotsman in Kentucky
http://thespider.oric.org
http://mintspider.blogspot.com
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carlsson
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Post by carlsson »

A lot of referral link bots tend to register to forums. Often they don't post a single message - unlike the mentioned bots - both have a homepage link to some drug reseller, porno site or similar. I suppose the admins here cut down those fake users as well?
Anders Carlsson
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Dbug
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Post by Dbug »

Ok, decided to ban all users registering with an email adress that finish by "*@mail.ru" and "*@gawab.com".

I can add a case by case unban... but seems that most of these referal spam crap are using this email pattern...
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Dbug
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Post by Dbug »

Since PHPBB Visual Confirmation code is a piece of garbage, I decided to hack in the code. So now it still displays the Visual Confirmation code, but it asks you to enter something else.

It's supposed to be the brand of the computer we are all talking about, which starts by a O and has four characters in total.
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Dbug
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Re: Spam-bots and ad-bots

Post by Dbug »

Well, that was an epic Spam Fest.

Positive thing: Now I know how PhpBB mass pruning works
Negative thing: PhpBB is really not very good

Please mark as spam the eventual messages I missed.

If you are a legit person and registered in the last 5 days, I'm sorry for you, just email me and I will recreate your account.
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Dbug
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Re: Spam-bots and ad-bots

Post by Dbug »

Got about 200 user requests a day for the last week, had to change the captcha question, hopefully that will help.

The problem is that I may have missed some genuine attempts at joining the forum.
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