btw3d wrote:

To Vogons admins: you can end this spambot nonsense (~95% of spam posts/accounts are spambots; real people are only 5%) by changing image captcha (which is ocr'ed already) with Q&A captcha (like: 'What's the color of grass' and the expected answer is 'green'). No need to create more strict registration rules. It's implemented in phpbb 3.0.6+, but you can easily implement it here too.

certain spambot software apparently overcomes Q&A captcha by routing questions to human solvers and collecting the answers - seems like this is how a lot of image captcha gets bypassed as well (rather than purely OCRing everything).

Post 236287

user nfljersey

Mabye can only post in forums after X amount of days after registration (for all forums except one forum for new users?)

DosFreak wrote:

Mabye can only post in forums after X amount of days after registration (for all forums except one forum for new users?)

That would only delay the arrival of the spam by a few days.

btw3d wrote:

To Vogons admins: you can end this spambot nonsense (~95% of spam posts/accounts are spambots; real people are only 5%) by changing image captcha (which is ocr'ed already) with Q&A captcha (like: 'What's the color of grass' and the expected answer is 'green'). No need to create more strict registration rules. It's implemented in phpbb 3.0.6+, but you can easily implement it here too.

Don't use a Q&A captcha, they're extremely susceptible to a targeted approach (someone writing a bot specific to this forum) and have other flaws. And I'm pretty sure there are generic spambots that can crack them through lookup tables too, since this technique has been around for a while.

The only right thing to do is to outsource your captchas to something like reCaptcha, which admittedly isn't perfect either, but still your best bet.

sliderider wrote:

DosFreak wrote:

Mabye can only post in forums after X amount of days after registration (for all forums except one forum for new users?)

That would only delay the arrival of the spam by a few days.

And be a nuisance to the honest people looking for a retro-home

Frankly, I don't think there is a single fullproof way to get spammers out of forums completely. Theres a lot of money going around in spammerworld and it's impossible to always be ahead of them. Best is to limit their nuisance in a way that's the least amount of work and nuisance to us.

If this means that readers can report spammers in a central topic so the mods can ban them in a convenient way, then it's a little amount of work to us and we keep the forums from getting flooded 😉

Topic 29294 🤣

z7h7a7n7g7
and lots of it

I think I deleted all of them for now.

I've added some over the top ip bans for them. I'll see if I can enhance the registration procedure a bit.

Qbix wrote:

I've added some over the top ip bans for them. I'll see if I can enhance the registration procedure a bit.

Cheers mate!

And if any still manage to bypass it, we'll happily keep on reporting them here ;D

mywork_kj has been posting plenty of spam lately

here are some of his threads:
Topic 29384
Topic 29383
Topic 29382
Topic 29381

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

mywork_kj has been posting plenty of spam lately […]
Show full quote

mywork_kj has been posting plenty of spam lately

here are some of his threads:
Topic 29384
Topic 29383
Topic 29382
Topic 29381

Reporting same spammer. Profile here

9 posts so far

(God I love this thread 😁 )

Batman Forever Arcade Game PC CD

Might wanna take a look at this "Hannah06" user here.

MONTHLY REPORT : JULY 2011

Number of spammers : 17

Number of posts : 41

Seems like spammers carnival, the past month.

Tetrium wrote:

Qbix wrote:

I've added some over the top ip bans for them. I'll see if I can enhance the registration procedure a bit.

Cheers mate!

And if any still manage to bypass it, we'll happily keep on reporting them here ;D

Yep, same here! Anything to keep this site a Holy Temple for Classic PC Enthusiasts alone. 😀

User shanebishop has exactly three posts: spam, spam and spam.

search.php?search_author=shanebishop

In other news, user coachoutlet sets a VOGONS first by trying to spam with his custom title (as well as his sig), and fails spectacularly:

Post 238506

Post 239199

cupnfriend

Aliens vs. Predator Gold

the cd key guy