SPAM

[Jhanananda]

Sorry people about the SPAM that has been showing up here.  Running a forum just means there is going to be SPAM appearing, and there does not seem to be much we can do about it, other than be on top of it and ask the members for their patience.  It is also possible that there are some people who have a profound lack of respect for mystics and are targeting this forum for SPAM.

[Alexander]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_eYSuPKP3Y =)

[Jhanananda]

Thanks, aglorincz, for the Monte Python interlude.  I am in contact with our webhost who is helping to work out a strategy that will hopefully reduce the SPAM attacks on both of the GWV forums.

[Jhanananda]

Our site administrator has helped me work on a strategy to reduce SPAM, which requires personally reviewing every membership request.  So far it has worked to eliminate SPAMers.

[Jhanananda]

Sorry about the recent SPAM, I was experimenting with a way to validate people quicker and easier, but it resulted in SPAM.  There maybe a lot more headed our way until I can correct my mistake.

[Jhanananda]

Since May my two forums have been inundated with requests to join, and every day there are more requests; however, most of those requests seem to be coming from SPAMers, so, if you are genuinely interested in being a member of this forum, then check your SPAM folder for an email from this forum requesting a response.  Without responding to that message you will not get your membership validated here.

[Jhanananda]

Only about 1% of the requests to join this forum respond to my email, and without responding to my email, your membership will not be validated.  So, either 99% of the requests for membership are coming from SPAMers, or people are having trouble getting their membership validated. 

So, if you are having trouble getting your membership validated for this forum, then send me a message.

[Jhanananda]

Sorry about the recent SPAM attacks, I have been trying to come up with a way to deal with all of the SPAMers who request membership, but still accept the occasional genuine request to join.  Since I started this forum I had been sending emails to every request to verify that the request comes from a real person, and not just a SPAN engine.  In the process I found most of those requests come from fraudulent emails, so yesterday I decided to try accepting the request, but requiring verification.  So far this seems to have eliminated most of the hundreds of requests, while only allowing through 3 SPAMers, so far.  It is a lot less forum maintenance effort for me to delete a few SPAMs and ban 3 SPAMers, than send off 50 email verifications every morning.  I hope the membership can tolerate the occasional SPAM.

[Jhanananda]

Sorry folks about the recent rash of SPAM that we have been inundated with.  I think businesses must be paying SPAMers to SPAM their message out.  So, I suggest that there be a movement to identify businesses that employ SPAMer for marketing, and boycotting the products and services of those businesses.

[Jhanananda]

The SPAMing of this forum has become relentless, while dialog on this forum has never been dynamic, and in fact it is nearly nonexistent, so I have been pondering ways to make my life easier, which is a central feature of the contemplative life.  Last night I considered just taking down this forum, and it is still a clear possibility.  However, it occurred to me that I could just close this forum to new members and add people who figure out how to send a personal request to one of the forum administrators.

I have seen over the years good forums collapse due to SPAM invasions. I suspect the reason why this forum is under siege by SPAMers is at least some of these SPAMers are deeply offended by the nature of this forum.  It also occurred to me that SPAMers must be sociopaths and resent dialog in general, or otherwise forums in general would not be under siege by SPAMers. 

If the WWW community wants dialog, then someone is going to have to figure out a way to deal with SPAMers.  Long prison terms might be a good solution, or just hunting them down like the animals that they are.

So, please post a comment regarding this strategy.

[Alexander]

I don't really understand how any of that works. They'll write something that doesn't make sense then post a link where you can buy crap or break your computer.

[Soren]

I have seen over the years good forums collapse due to SPAM invasions. I suspect the reason why this forum is under siege by SPAMers is at least some of these SPAMers are deeply offended by the nature of this forum.  It also occurred to me that SPAMers must be sociopaths and resent dialog in general, or otherwise forums in general would not be under siege by SPAMers.

I think that spammers are actually robots that seek out random forums through search engines and then search for key words like "register" - and then run a program which signs them up. Is there a captcha required in order to sign up?

If the WWW community wants dialog, then someone is going to have to figure out a way to deal with SPAMers.  Long prison terms might be a good solution, or just hunting them down like the animals that they are.
So, please post a comment regarding this strategy.

That seems a little harsh.

[Soren]

Here is a decent on article on SPAM (prevention) that is using the same forum software as this one:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=377031.0

3) Spam prevention
   
Spam prevention and deletions measurably increase the workload of forum administrators and moderators. The amount of time and resources spent keeping a forum spam free contributes significantly to labor cost, and the skill required in the running of a public forum. Marginally profitable or smaller forums may be permanently closed by administrators.   

Most forum software, including SMF, have ability for creating different member groups [2]. Different membergroups may use different sets of permissions, such as ability to post links, include links in their signatures, access to certain parts of the forum, etc. Assigning new members to a membergroup with limited features might have a positive effect of not giving spam users a chance to advertise their services.

Best idea to eliminate spam, is to cut out spam registrations. There is a number of ways to achieve this.
- employ CAPTCHA [3] (visual confirmation) routines on the registration pages to prevent spambots carrying out automated registrations. Simple CAPTCHA systems which display alphanumeric characters have proven vulnerable to optical character recognition software but those that scramble the characters appear to be far more effective.
- request email confirmation for newly created accounts. this way spammer needs to confirm his email address by clicking the confirmation being sent by the forum engine in order to fully activate their account.
- some forums employ manual activation by administration. this wat, forum administrator may check the legitimacy of a new user before accepting or refusing registration.

All SMF approved mods for Spam Prevention may be found here: http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?action=search;type=19
Later in this article we will demonstrate which ones may be helpful against different kind of spammers.

3.1) Registration control

Apart from default prevention methods built in SMF, additional measures may be used. Usually they are being provided by 3rd party modifications (mods).
Here is a list of mods that will help you to target spammers during the registration process:
- Anti-Spam Verification Questions for SMF 1.1.7 - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1516
- Avatar Verification (1.1.10, 2.0 RC1.2, 2.0 RC2, 1.1.11) - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2182
- reCAPTCHA for SMF  (all versions) - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1044

Note: this list doesn't include mods that are targetting spammers by an "authoritative voice" method. This method uses 3rd party resources, such as list of known spammer's IP addresses, their email details, and other, which may help to detect the spammer. Those method, and mods that employs it, will be explained in the last chapter of this manual.


3.2) Posting limits

In order to limit the amount of spam, administrator may force users to wait for a short interval between making posts to the forum, thus preventing spambots from flooding the forum with repeated spam messages. In SMF, this may be tackled by setting a time interval between sending two messages from the same IP address [4]. For both 1.x and 2.x this may be found here:
* Administration Center » Posts and Topics » Post Settings » Time required between posts from the same IP
By changing the number here, we change the amount of seconds between accepting by SMF two posts from the same IP address (which usually means the same computer).

Some spammers try to send Personal Messages (PMs) instead of posting rogue links. SMF allows to limit a number of PM sent hourly, you will find appriopriate setting in membergroups settings.

There is no built in method to limit the amount of posts an user may send hourly in SMF. Additionaly, there is no mod for such available at the mods page at this moment. So apart from setting a time interval between sending two posts, there is no other way of limiting an user to flood the forum with their posts.

3.2.1) Limiting posting links

As most of spammer's post are just links to other websites, another approach is not to allow spammers post links. This may be achieved different ways, such as disabling BBC for certain groups, or using mods to limit spammer's capability.
- Anti Spam: prevents posting links by group (1.1.4) - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?action=search;type=19;bool=and;asc;start=0
- Anti-Spam Links (2.0 RC2, 2.0 RC3) - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2404
- Spam Black List (1.1.4) - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=467
- Stop Spam Links (1.1.9) - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1855

and another one which target only guests (when you enable guest posting on your forum):
- No Spam by Guests! (1.0.5, 1.0.6, 1.0.7, 1.1 RC1, 1.1 RC2, 1.1 RC3, 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, 1.1.4) - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=369

Here is an idea: There is no posting of links allowed except for users with 5-10 posts already written. This would establish them as non-spammers first.

[Jhanananda]

I don't really understand how any of that works. They'll write something that doesn't make sense then post a link where you can buy crap or break your computer.

I think what is behind the motivation for all SPAMers is they are sociopaths who do not value dialog; however, most of the SPAM I see is selling a product, personality or service, so greed is the primary motivation.

I think that spammers are actually robots that seek out random forums through search engines and then search for key words like "register" - and then run a program which signs them up. Is there a captcha required in order to sign up?

They might be robots, but someone is behind the robot telling it to market their products, personalities or services.
Yes, I have a captcha.  It seems to keep the genuine people away while selecting for SPAMers.

If the WWW community wants dialog, then someone is going to have to figure out a way to deal with SPAMers.  Long prison terms might be a good solution, or just hunting them down like the animals that they are.
So, please post a comment regarding this strategy.

That seems a little harsh.

Well, if people want the WWW to continue then they have to figure out how to deal with SPAMers.  Otherwise the WWW is just going to crash and burn due to increasing SPAM.

Thank-you Soren, for posting these recommendations.  I have already implemented some of those recommendation.  I would like to put all new members on moderation so that an administrator has to read their posts.  If it is SPAM, then the ID is banned.  If it is a genuine response to this forum then their post is allowed through and the person's membership is upgraded to not-moderated.  However, the Small Machines forum software is the most user hostile software I have ever had to use, demonstrating these people are complete idiots and have no clue how to deal with SPAMers.

[Soren]

Ironically enough there were two new spam posts to greet me when I signed in just now. I honestly don't understand why these spammers would think that the type of community here would want to buy from Ralph Lauren or cheap Asian boots.