Topic: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

It would be nice if I could configure PunBB to autoban and delete all posts of someone who, in their first X posts, used the keyword Y.

For example, if I could autoban anyone who in their first five posts referred to any kind of pill, that would get rid of 99% of my spammers and 0% of my legitimate users.

Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

Good idea for those links that are meant for a human clicking on them.
As they are often trying to link farm, get higher search rankings for the keywords, the question is:


A. to be considered

  • will it still help them achieve the aim of getting better search enginge rankings for the spam site they are pointing to, if they write 'vi4gr4', 'v i a g r a' etc? That would create so many possibilities that the list of keywords would become huge


B. Ideas to efficiently counter the spam content posts

  • Quarantine any posts with the keyword (manual input by every forum admin, moderator)

  • Circulating such lists among forum admins could be beneficial (if the point listed under A. is considered)

  • Query an online database of keywords (similiar to the extension Grez wrote for URL checking that queries an online database of URLs used by spammers) and quarantine any attempts for use of those keywords

  • If using an online database it could be interesting to have checkable listings for 'watches, shoes, handbags (shopping)', 'pills (pharma)', 'porno, sex, etc'....

Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

Schematic view

http://keydogbb.info/img/keyword-checker.png

Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

Currently fancy_stop_spam have is_bot flag in users table. It turn on when user make suspicious action.

In the next release im planned disable ability create new message for users with this flag. And user can remove this flag through some actions - for example captcha or other methods. This method will be work for all new users - who have < 3 posts. I think its good antispam method.

I dont like any auto-ban or even auto-remove methods - its very very bad.

Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

dimkalinux: If it were limited to their first few posts, I can't see the harm of auto-ban/auto-remove. They haven't made many posts so it doesn't lose much if it's a false positive. On a technical message board there is never any reason for a new poster to be talking about Xanax or whatever, so false positives are very unlikely.

Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

Yes, if you have only bots with Xanax.

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Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

Why reinvent the wheel? Akismet does this with much better accuracy and we already have extension for it. (btw Rich Pedley's version still works, though I'd recommend to use the one I posted at the end of topic, since Rich wasn't here for two years...)

Eraversum - scifi browser-based online webgame

Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

Grez wrote:

Why reinvent the wheel? Akismet does this with much better accuracy and we already have extension for it. (btw Rich Pedley's version still works, though I'd recommend to use the one I posted at the end of topic, since Rich wasn't here for two years...)


Firstly:

Thanks a lot for thinking of the Aksimet approach and updating the extension. Have installed and am testing your update on a testforum...

Secondly:

They are a bit too much in ones face about money (sad smiley face when giving 0$ & priority on paid accounts) and getting an API from them... (granted: because of their popularity!) I hope we can implement a solution that a.) doesn't need an API (like URL Checker extension)  b.) places more  transparency on any income made from project.

Akismet wrote:

Paid account perks - Priority over free accounts - Faster & more reliable - No traffic limits or throttles


dimkalinux wrote:

I dont like any auto-ban or even auto-remove methods - its very very bad.

Agree. That's why I'd place any posts dealt with (also the akismet-method) in a quarantine section (like pun_approval does for posts).

Combining keyword censoring and approach from pun_approval can be an interesting approach.
[KEYDOG EDIT: THIS IS ALREADY POSSIBLE:]Maybe it will be enough to upgrade the akismet extension to be able to retrieve the false positives...

dimkalinux wrote:

And user can remove this flag through some actions - for example captcha or other methods.

Knowing that spammers have cracked the captcha technology or use cheap manual labor for high profile sites such as this one (punbb.informer.com/forums), I'm sure it will reduce, but not eliminate the problem posts.

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Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

KeyDog wrote:

They are a bit too much in ones face about money (sad smiley face when giving 0$ & priority on paid accounts) and getting an API from them... (granted: because of their popularity!) I hope we can implement a solution that a.) doesn't need an API (like URL Checker extension)

But they are still free for personal blogs, so I don't think forum could be much different. Quite active forum might get how much? 500 posts a day? If we check only users with less than 10 posts it could be how many? 20, 30 request a day? That (I bet) is still in their free plan smile

Eraversum - scifi browser-based online webgame

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Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

Grez wrote:

But they are still free for personal blogs, so I don't think forum could be much different. Quite active forum might get how much? 500 posts a day? If we check only users with less than 10 posts it could be how many? 20, 30 request a day? That (I bet) is still in their free plan smile

True, still free.

Just a bit annoyed when they try to make you feel bad for not paying even though their database is based on a community effort and plugins are developed by third parties.

No transparency over how much they are making from it...

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Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

@KeyDog: Yea, that smiley is nice big_smile They even had a blog post about that. Though I don't blame them. Automattic created one of the most successful open source CMS in the world, it's still better than some company which buys open source forum and after some time leaves it without support (guess which Russian company do I have on mind? tongue)

Eraversum - scifi browser-based online webgame

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Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

Grez wrote:

@KeyDog: Yea, that smiley is nice big_smile They even had a blog post about that. Though I don't blame them. Automattic created one of the most successful open source CMS in the world, it's still better than some company which buys open source forum and after some time leaves it without support (guess which Russian company do I have on mind? tongue)

Interesting statistics big_smile
I know what you mean. But I think the guy who sold it to Russian company was the one that acted egoistically (wrongly, imho). If you create something open source, you need to make sure it stays that way. I think informer has - currently - found a good solution for keeping it going and I appreciate the effort dimkalinux and hcs (and extension developers, moderators) invest into the project smile

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Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

@KeyDog: Yep, I'm also glad for dimkalinux and hcs, but they aren't Informer employees, are they?

Eraversum - scifi browser-based online webgame

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Re: Keyword-based autoban with post limit

dimkalinux wrote:

Currently fancy_stop_spam have is_bot flag in users table. It turn on when user make suspicious action.

Had not seen this until just now... very nice... many options!

http://keydogbb.info/img/anitspam_4.png

Will be great if you have same options as in sfs_antispam extension for submitting the evidence (when deleting a user)!

@Grez: I believe not (see email...)