Forum spammers/solicitations

[axon]

Dear Members,

during the past few weeks our forum has been experiencing an increase in posts soliciting products and/or services. Such posts are illegal on our forum, and will be deleted on sight. If such a post is the only one made by a member that member's IP will be banned and the user account deleted. Seems like these rogue posters originate from one IP subnet, but we cannot ban it since many of our regular members come from that area of the world.

Neither Wes nor I can be on the forum all the time so the plea to the regulars is to report such posts right away, so that they could be dealt with efficiently and effectively.

Best regards,

Jake (axon)

P.S. Big thanks to the vigilant members like Canerican for reporting previous problems.

[Mogwai]

Thanks for the post, axon.  One thing I might add is these spammers can also send each member private messages with the spam text.  So be on the lookout there, too, and let us know if you get one (we need their username, IP, and email address).  I got one today and that member's IP address, username and email addy is now banned from this forum.

Why are there people like this in the world?  
Honestly, how low can someone get?  Do they actually think we are going to click their links? (sigh...)

[Canerican]

I moderate a forum with about 7000 members (only about 1000 are active) But we get loads of spam, we have just increaesed security to prevent it, and it has worked. You may want to consider a program called vBulletin. It works well. Anyway, the spam still trickles through sometimes, but it has gotten better. The website is www.vdrums.com We have 5 moderators and an administrator, and sometimes it seems like we need more.

[axon]

I also mod a VB type forum, and even though the licence costs money spammers are abundant there as well.

[Mogwai]

Unfortunately, the spam posting has increased.  I've banned/deleted about 4 or 5 accounts just in the last four days.  Thanks to those of you honest users that have filed reports about them - I do receive the notices in my inbox about their spam posting and have taken action.

[axon]

I have banned a few myself as well in the past week...

[Canerican]

It is funny that they target a website like this, there are many forums with well over 10000 or even 100000 members, this forum is relatively small in comparison. Oh well, they don't care, all they want is one or two hits... it's free advertising for them so if they get any bites it's a huge bonus.

[axon]

two today for me.

[axon]

This is getting out of hand.

I'm not exactly sure what to do to remedy this problem. I changed the forum registration settings a bit, counting on either a) the spammers being lazy, and b) using fake email accounts - from now on, upon registration, a temporary password will be sent out to the member, and only with that password can that memebr log in.

Hopefully it'll help.

[Worm]

Why are there people like this in the world?  
Honestly, how low can someone get?  Do they actually think we are going to click their links? (sigh...)

The question isn't "why" the question is "how come".

I guess they are zero-heads that don't even know they're zero.  They wouldn't even dare to post a reply to this, with a thought in it.  They wander around and don't know why.

poor slobs  

[Mogwai]

This is getting out of hand.

I'm not exactly sure what to do to remedy this problem. I changed the forum registration settings a bit, counting on either a) the spammers being lazy, and b) using fake email accounts - from now on, upon registration, a temporary password will be sent out to the member, and only with that password can that memebr log in.

Hopefully it'll help.

Thanks for doing that axon.  Great idea!  We'll see if that curbs their spamming enthusiasm here.

[axon]

I think its working! two new spammers signed up on thursday (judging by their email address) and both have not posted anything - one of those email looks fake to be sure. Afterall, a spammer knows the possible consequence of giving up their own email addy

lets hope I'm right.

[Mogwai]

This is indeed working, axon - their posts are not showing up which is a huge relief.  However, they keep signing up which is ticking me off.  I had to delete 24 members today - members that signed up in the last three weeks.  It seems like the spammers are using @mail.ru and @cashette.com.  At this point, I don't know how to block them from signing up.  I don't want our memberlist to be inflated with a bunch of spammers.

There is one solution I do know of, however: that is to upgrade to the newest version of this forum software which is called Simple Machines (www.simplemachines.org).  I've installed it fresh for a client website and it is certainly an 'upgrade' which features galore.  It also includes a member approval system as well as the ability to block certain domains from signing up (I tried blocking *@cashette.com here but that didn't work, obviously...you can do this on the new one).

The thing that worries me is the changeover/upgrade since I am a total n00b at databases.  I don't want this forum to accidently be deleted, butchered, etc.  axon, do you have any experience in doing this?  Let me know...I'm seriously considering upgrading this forum for heightened security and easier administration.  

[axon]

I don't have much experience in doing it but I know someone how actually works on the development team for SM. He could be trusted, and I'm pretty sure he will be willing to help us out. I use SM on another forum, and it is a huge improvement from this one. Let me know how you would like to do this.

[Monster_Rain]

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