***Poker Spammer Is Back***

Andrew · May 19, 2005, 05:45:58 PM

I am working on a solution that will deny the zombie from posting, without having to turn on "login to post" rules.

odinn7 · May 19, 2005, 06:07:13 PM

Funny that a bad movies board would have a "zombie" posting to it.

Dunners · May 19, 2005, 07:39:03 PM

You die now odin.

*pokes Odin and he dies*

...Crap now I feel guilty.

Archivist · May 23, 2005, 04:14:16 AM

Get him in the 'onion films' thread. Is there no way to stop this automated spam? How is this happening, exactly?

Scott · May 23, 2005, 05:15:25 AM

I picked off the "onion" post.

odinn7 · May 23, 2005, 07:18:09 AM

The SOB now posted something in the "MUST FIGURE OUT!!!!" thread.
He's getting more persistent.

trekgeezer · May 23, 2005, 07:31:43 AM

I picked him off yet another time.

odinn7 · May 23, 2005, 11:57:49 AM

See "Spun (2004)" for more details...

ulthar · May 23, 2005, 12:05:31 PM

Menard wrote:

> That is one persistent SOB. Do they actually think that
> constant harassment like that makes peolple want to visit their
> site?

They are probably bots. crawling the web looking for forum sites on which to post.

ulthar · May 23, 2005, 12:18:49 PM

Archivist wrote:

> Get him in the 'onion films' thread. Is there no way to stop
> this automated spam? How is this happening, exactly?

Bots (perl or other language scripts or even compiled programs) running on a server, or p0wn3d machine, crawl the web, visiting 'random' ip addresses until they find one that responds to certain requests (ie, a web server). Then, they look for html consistent with forum pages. It's fairly easy to set up, and it is all automated.

There are several ways to block it; log on only posting (which Andrew is trying to avoid), blocking entire blocks of IP addresses (which may cut-out legit users inadvertently), doing some pseudo session 'feedback' that is unique to your site (and maybe changes occasionally), etc. Basically, one has to do things that an automated, generic program would not know about or be able to respond to. It may mean more inconvenience to the users, as 'security' often does.

Some forum software is particularly prone to it; I adminned a server running phpbb2 0.6 for a while, and we CONSTANTLY got hammered by users registering only with links to porn sites (they did not post messages like in this case). Supposedly, phpbb2 has gotten better at it. Overall, this site seems to be pretty darn good at combatting the problem, with only a few irritants getting through from time to time.

In any case, my hat is off to Andrew and the overall effectiveness of his anti-abuse measures and the general high quality of this site. He'll get it under control, possibly only until the bot is mutated and the process starts over.

trekgeezer · May 23, 2005, 01:28:11 PM

Another one bites the dust!

odinn7 · May 23, 2005, 01:39:08 PM

Sorry to keep you so busy trek...any time you want me to stop pointing them out, let me know. It's almost becoming a challenge now to be able to spot them. I come on here and see a topic that I recognize as being old and then before I look at it, I try to guess if it's been spammed.

trekgeezer · May 23, 2005, 04:24:34 PM

Hey odinn7, I'm getting so paranoid about the stupid things that everytime an old post comes back I'm in there scanning it for the poker guy.

AndyC · May 24, 2005, 07:28:53 AM

Sometimes when this comes up, I do a search of recent posts for "poker" or other keywords, just to be sure one wasn't missed.

I'm just waiting for the supreme irony, if it should start posting to this thread. Then we could just have "Poker Spammer is Back" popping to the top every time. Would actually be quite convenient.

Andrew · May 25, 2005, 01:09:17 PM

I am continuing to fight back against the spammer. Sort of hard, since I am away from home and had to use an Internet Cafe. Hopefully, these new rules will keep out the zombie machines without causing problems for legitimate users.