Re: How big a problem is spam

I have an idea:

My CAPTCHA code logs failed attempts along with the reason: wrong code or missing session information. It is very clear that the spambots don't deal with sessions. I have a big list of IP addresses that are being used for spamming. In principle we could set up some kind of public IP blacklist, so that webmasters who don't want captchas for accessibility reasons could automatically block these IP addresses.

I already checked the Spamcop.net blacklist, but the forumspammer I'm dealing with apparently doesn't use the same IP addresses for email spam.

Re: How big a problem is spam

my spammers never used the same ip address.  I'd get about 10 spams a day on my site, and it would be the exact same messages from 10 different ip addresses. I had added a spam ban script that would automatically htaccess "deny from ip" based on message content but it didnt do much good at blocking them unless I banned on the first octet of the ipaddress.

Re: How big a problem is spam

MadHatter wrote:

my spammers never used the same ip address.

Mine don't either, at least most of the time. But what I mean is if a couple of us have a realtime blacklist we could do IP lookup. So far my list has 600+ ip addresses that were used for 800+ spam messages over the course of 6 weeks. It would be trivial to keep this list up-to-date in realtime, with a dynamic webpage, e.g. www*example.com/spamcheck?ip=123.45.67.89 that gives a simple YES or NO.

It is of course a bit harder to arrange for other websites to submit blacklisted IP addresses, but there probably is some way around it.

A punBB mod could query the above URL whenever an anonymous visitor tries to post or create an account. That way you don't have to annoy your visitors with captchas.

29

Re: How big a problem is spam

hankwang, the problem with blacklists is that they become a chore to keep updated.

We were using a blacklist to combat spam in Nucleus and the traffic being generated to the blacklist caused the maintainer to drop support for it.

I think it will come down to a simple solution that takes into account all those visiting our forums. Captchas are out but there are others working on solutions as we speak, I think a spam extension is in order as soon as PunBB 1.3 comes out.

Some available solutions:

THaCAA - http://system-x.info/?pageid=18&menutree=47
HumanAuth - http://www.gigoit.org/humanauth/

Re: How big a problem is spam

there are more than one type of captcha.  the captcha project has like 3 or 4 types.  personally I find the distorted text captcha the most annoying.

Re: How big a problem is spam

hcgtv wrote:

the problem with blacklists is that they become a chore to keep updated.

I'm trying to explain that it is trivial to update my blacklist automatically due to the access patterns used by bots (no session keys, user agent, probably headers as well). Although I'm not sure I want to be serving out such a blacklist to all forums on the WWW.

THaCAA, HumanAuth

THaCAA is trivial to beat automatically. Just download the package and you have a list of all questions. HumanAuth suffers  from the same accessibility problem as distorted text. Moreover it is a huge investment to create the image library and -relatively- easy to write a program that uses this same library to solve the questions.

MadHatter wrote:

personally I find the distorted text captcha the most annoying.

I agree it is somewhat annoying. But it is the best trade-off up to now between how easy it is to generate them with a computer, how hard it is to solve them automatically, and how easy it is to solve them for a human.  And you only need to use it for new user registrations and anonymous posts. The alternative to me would be manual removal of those 800 spam posts I got over the last 6 weeks.

32

Re: How big a problem is spam

hankwang wrote:

Although I'm not sure I want to be serving out such a blacklist to all forums on the WWW.

There lies the problem, a blacklist becomes useful when it's updated by all participants.

Re: How big a problem is spam

I've been working a lot with SOLR (which an online version of the lucene search engine) here at work lately.  its written by c|net, and for a java app, is actually pretty nice wink.  you update its index (in this case a blacklisted ip address) and query it over http / xml so it would be a really good candidate for a blacklist server.  our instance has like 100 million documents stored and runs at google speeds.  it would actually be a pretty negligible addition performance wise assuming the blacklist server stayed up.

34

Re: How big a problem is spam

MadHatter wrote:

you update its index (in this case a blacklisted ip address) and query it over http / xml so it would be a really good candidate for a blacklist server.

Can be useful but the trouble is that people writing and surfing  hidden between an anonymous proxy won't be able to come anymore because spammers use the same proxies to put their 5h1t on our forums.

Re: How big a problem is spam

hcgtv wrote:

Some available solutions:

THaCAA - http://system-x.info/?pageid=18&menutree=47
HumanAuth - http://www.gigoit.org/humanauth/

Or how about this:

Hot Captcha: http://www.hotcaptcha.com/

big_smile

Looking for a certain modification for your forum? Please take a look here before posting.

36

Re: How big a problem is spam

pogenwurst, I couldn't hit the site earlier, it was on Digg I think.

I like it, could be used for a lighthearted forum or gallery site.

Re: How big a problem is spam

hcgtv wrote:

pogenwurst, I couldn't hit the site earlier, it was on Digg I think.

Yeah, that's where I heard about it.

Looking for a certain modification for your forum? Please take a look here before posting.

38 (edited by soyuz 2006-08-04 07:38)

Re: How big a problem is spam

i just being attacked by spammers. I already setup that Guests can only read. But it doesn't work. I don't know how. I try to post in my forum as a guest, and it works sad

Every minutes they'll post a new reply, and counting. It's really annoying.

regards,

Soyuz

Re: How big a problem is spam

I've also had a problem where editing the Guest permissions so they can't post comments doesn't work.  I'm doing this in Administration -> User Groups -> Edit - Guest -> Post replies: No.  Is this correct?

I have guest posting turned on for my forum.  Three days ago I got hit by a spambot that posts 8 links per post.  I added a quick-fix for that particular bot with a counter, and the next day, my counter showed that 1,503 guest posts had been blocked!  I've been refining my blocker, and now prevent any hard links (that don't use the BBcode "url" tag) from working with guest accounts.  I'll see how that works.  If anyone is interested, I could post the code I have, as well as any other things I find out about the bots attacking my site.

Of course, this is only for bots, not people.  wink

Re: How big a problem is spam

Waccoon wrote:

I'm doing this in Administration -> User Groups -> Edit - Guest -> Post replies: No.  Is this correct?

Have you also set the permissions correctly on a per-forum basis?

Looking for a certain modification for your forum? Please take a look here before posting.

41

Re: How big a problem is spam

pogenwurst wrote:

Or how about this:
Hot Captcha: http://www.hotcaptcha.com/
big_smile

Cool, but   it could keep people busy for hours.
Plus:
I just did 10 rounds on that  site and I failed only 3 times.
Is that good or bad?

The German PunBB Site:
PunBB-forum.de

Re: How big a problem is spam

Tobi wrote:
pogenwurst wrote:

Or how about this:
Hot Captcha: http://www.hotcaptcha.com/
big_smile

Cool, but   it could keep people busy for hours.
Plus:
I just did 10 rounds on that  site and I failed only 3 times.
Is that good or bad?

Don't worry, it only means you're not human. wink

It's far from the most effective system, but it sure is hilarious.

Looking for a certain modification for your forum? Please take a look here before posting.

43

Re: How big a problem is spam

Tobi wrote:

I just did 10 rounds on that  site and I failed only 3 times.
Is that good or bad?

I failed about 6 times before I was hailed as a human, maybe I've been out of circulation for too long wink

44

Re: How big a problem is spam

pogenwurst wrote:
Waccoon wrote:

I'm doing this in Administration -> User Groups -> Edit - Guest -> Post replies: No.  Is this correct?

Have you also set the permissions correctly on a per-forum basis?

I already did both to all forums. but the spambots still attack. The funniest thing is, they only hit one thread.

Is it because of migrating from phpBB?

regards,

Soyuz

45

Re: How big a problem is spam

soyuz wrote:

The funniest thing is, they only hit one thread.

Close that thread, it's very common for bots to target a specific url.

46

Re: How big a problem is spam

thanks for your advice. i just closed that thread. let see if they target other threads. i hope not big_smile.

regards,

Soyuz

Re: How big a problem is spam

My spambot visitor always tries to spam topics 10 and 12. As far as I can tell it never watches the result page because it has already tried some 1400 times in 2.5 months. All attempts were blocked by the captcha.

48 (edited by snapsolutions 2006-08-14 02:48)

Re: How big a problem is spam

You should all update your ban list with the following 3 domains: spambob.org, spambob.net & spambob.com. Today I've lost 30 minutes deleting spammers. mad
Visit spambob.com and you'll see why these domains should be on your ban list.

49 (edited by Hoot 2006-08-14 15:07)

Re: How big a problem is spam

Denver Dave wrote:

My experience with forum spam is radically different !  I noticed that several of the boards that I visit are using PunBB, so I thought I'd pay a visit.  I run several boards with another popular BB system.  Until this year, I would have had similar opinions to those expressed about forum spam.  However, this year things have changed.  My boards, like many others have had constant spamming. 

I encourage you to incorporate robust anti-spam measures into PunBB.

Current anti-spam measures that I have in place now on my boards - some requiring modifications:

(1) Image verification for registration - helps some, would like one that is harder to crack.  Also would like the option for image verification on posts.

(2) Memberlist does not list members with 0 posts.  If you have an option to sort by joined descending, you may find that spammers are in under your radar and using their website links in the memberlist to advertise porn sites, etc.  We do not list members with 0 posts and plan on deleting all members without posts once a month with a script.

(3) I have never allowed Guest posts.

(4) Tried user (email), none and admin authorization - user (email) seemed to work the best in my situation - admin would be better if you know the registrants.

(5) Admin notify on all new posts (probably should also have on replies) - each new post generates an email to 3 admins - the first one to be available checks out the posts and either replies if they have something to say or deletes the post if spam - we try to be fast and get the spam off as quickly as possible.  Would prefer to have an option to only notify for posts if a new or non-trusted member, but have not implemented this yet.

(6) Considering banning all registrations with .ru address, but have not done this yet.

(7) I really want an Easy De-Spam button where with one click on a post, an administrator can delete the user and all posts for the user.

With the above, we have made a definite difference in reducing spam, but I would have to say that automated and real people spammers are better at adjusting and getting on boards than I am at defending the boards.  Any additional ideas greatly appreciated.

If your message board has much traffic and does not have a problem with forum spam, consider yourself lucky and I can't help wondering if you and I must be on different planets - or maybe spam is on its way.

Would you be able to give me the links to thoughs mods.

Re: How big a problem is spam

1) http://www.punres.org/desc.php?pid=59

3, 4, and 6 available through built in options, group permissions, and bans.

5) http://www.punres.org/desc.php?pid=95

Looking for a certain modification for your forum? Please take a look here before posting.