Forum - View topic[OT] Spambots
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Richard J.
 Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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Lately, it seems like ANN has been suffering from a bad case of Spambots and I wanted to know what everyone thinks about it. Why are we getting "lucky" with all the Spambots? Is it just a random thing or is it possible that someone is actually targeting the site?
Also, is the forum the only part of the site that can be affected by these obnoxious electronic verimin or can they get into PMs and such too? Does anyone here actually click on the links? What measures are the site owners taking to protect us from Spambots and other such things? |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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Remember big Onii-sama is watching. *Don't* click on the links.
I do think this is an issue that needs to be addressed by forum admins (I'm sure it is). But ultimately it is probably just something that needs constant vigilance in order to control. |
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Cloe
Moderator
 Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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I don't *think* it's connected, but the spam-guard in my email account doesn't seem to be working as well recently, either. In fact, I'll go and take a peek right now...
Three in a row! A collection agent in Shanghai (Earn 10%! Amazing!), Dr.Mrs.Sara R. Kadyrov, and... oh, lucky me! Universal Lottery Promo International! I'd better be sure to give all my really important information away for that one. Gag. All in my inbox, instead of the spambox where they belong, with the penis enhancers and Nigerian spammers. Maybe recently the spambots are just becoming more organized and better at what they do.  I never click the links when one shows up in the forum; I just report them.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6897 Location: Kazune City |
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The one thing I do know for sure is that they like to post at about 5 or 6 AM when practically no one's around
I don't know that ANN is specifically targeted; maybe they just seek out forums with high enough levels of traffic and work their robotic magic on them. I think I've suggested in the past that the admins install a registration verification system, like one of those "type in these letters" fields. |
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Rªdì¢âl_£Ð
 Posts: 112 |
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It is a natural occurence in the internet. I moderate a forum and since the start of November we got hit by five spammers and during October we got 28. The type of spam we get ranges from pharmaceuticals to pornography to morgages. The bots usually only post once while the spammers just post spam as much as they can. We quickly rounded up and quarantined their posts and in the case of the spammers we ban them.
This is the internet after all and there will always be people out there who want make a mess of everything. |
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PantsGoblin
 SubscriberEncyclopedia Editor  Posts: 2969 Location: L.A. |
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Wait, there isn't one of those? (haven't registered in a while so I wouldn't remember) Well, I can see why we get so much then... it would help a lot if they put one of those in... |
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Richard J.
Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I've noticed an uptick in Spambots on anime forums and I've seen a few sites knocked out for no apparent reason. Probably just a coincidence but there are so many people in this world with too much time and too much anger to rule it out completely. On the verification system, what exactly are you talking about? My first thought reading your post was that thing rapidshare does. Rªdì¢âl_£Ð: You had 28 Spammers/Spambots? That must have been a fun time.
Whom ever invented Spambots should be placed in a gladiator ring and forced to fight for his life for our amusement. 
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator  Posts: 11430 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Spambots are only affecting the forums to my knowledge. I've yet to recieve a report or witness any kind of Encyclopedia or site vandalism from anyone/thing other than idiot people who think they're funny.
As for the links, of course you shouldn't click on them. Who knows what kind of ad/spyware or whatever crap may infect your computer. Also, I appreciate the efforts of those who are not replying those threads. All I need to do is simply get a report or spot this crap, lock it, and send it to what we call the "Locked/Deleted Threads" section of the Staff forum. If you're foolish enough or have the gall to even post in those, then I'd certainly ban you for a day because there really is no reason for you to be doing so. Anyway, tempest is on quite a bit, believe it or not, and he deals with a majority of those accounts by dishing out bans and such. Other than their freuqency, I don't see this as much of a problem since it's so easy for me to deal with them anyway  .
But yeah, Past's remark about the constant vigilance is pretty much my stand. To parphrase a certain alchemist warrior I'm starting to get a liking for and intended towards spammers, "I'll blow your guts out!" |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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If you don't mind my asking, how do these bots even work to get onto these forums and post stuff?
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mjgeo
 Posts: 133 Location: Australia |
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I don't know what emails the bots use to register, but one option could be to block certain email addresses or the suffix (not sure if that's the right word).
But I think it'll only work if the bots use those odd email addresses, or the bots are coming from the same @. |
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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I believe Zalis116 is talking about captchas. As you'll see in that Wikipedia article, numerous methods exist to circumvent this supposed "safeguard". So there's a limit to how effective that would be. - abunai |
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Richard J.
Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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Thank you abunai for the information. You know quite a few interesting facts. While this has nothing to do with spam, is anyone else getting a really annoying ad for something called Magical Starsign for the Nintendo DS that hangs down over a quarter of your space for writing posts and reading the titles of threads? Bloody thing is staring me right in the face as I type this post. Tried refreshing for a different ad but it keeps coming back. |
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Gage
Posts: 480 Location: United States |
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Shouldn't this have went into the Bugs and Technical Questions? Spambots really do not have that much to do with anime in general...only the website.
OK correction: The Bugs area would be good. 
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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I've had an ongoing problem with spambots on my forums for a long time. I do allow anon posting (and am never going to take that away if I can help it) which doesn't help but I have taken measures like restricting anon posting to forum #1 as they automatically targetted that one. They then started registering accounts, even so far as passing email validation successfully, so I had to ban registrations from @mail.ru etc... most of the time its a case of having mods move the threads out of the way as they appear and banning the IPs, but most of the time you never see the same IP twice since I believe most of the spamming is done via zombie computers infected with RATs so it's an endless game of whack-a-troll.
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Rªdì¢âl_£Ð
Posts: 112 |
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Not really. The real "fun" begins when they are extremely persistant spammers that want to be banned and post as often as they can. Chasing after those guys can be quite a work out especially if they had a head start. Luckily there is no delay when moving threads unlike posting which has a one minute delay before you can post again. We've also had spammers that actually post images of pornography instead of links. However, our automated security system is about average and it's been months since something like that has happened. |
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