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Last edited by Denny on Tue Sep 13, 2005 1:36 pm

I see a spammer polluting forums everyday with all kind of websites, how do we stop that?

In case you see a spam post please send a pm to me or any of our moderator.

Thanks
Denny

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 12:31 pm Subject:

YOu could block the IP address of whomever is posting these sites. That's one thought...if I see any spam posts, I will inform you immediately.

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 1:16 pm Subject:

Denny, here is what I would recommend (keep in mind this is one of the main reasons I came to your forum - is so I can provide my technical expertise on matters like these as a moderator):

(1) Force registration. No user should be able to make a post without registration. Though this may seem like an inconvenience for some, this will prevent bots from posting and people spoofing others' identities.
(2) Do not allow any person other than "Guest" to view (read or write) any of the fourms except the welcome forum -- which should explain that registration is mandatory for security purposes.

There are a few other minor suggestions, but for the most part these two things will prevent 90% of your spams and spoofings.

Cheers! Smile

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 3:37 pm Subject:

Hi cryptowizard

I appreciate your thought. Many of the visitors in this forum come for the very first time and they need some time to get acquainted with the quality of work here. They post their queries being a guest and once they feel satisfied, they register themselves.

Mandating a registration will give the visitors a very less scope for clearing their queries and thus this forum will not reach the common mass.

Though your suggestion is also very appropriate to prevent spamming, but a lot of the people in need will lose access because of some unwanted guests.

Any comments

Regards
Roxette

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 5:25 am Subject:

Roxette:

I can understand that point - and I've deal with similiar issues in prior forum administration - but I'm telling you *hands down* forcing registration is the only way you're going to secure this forum. Not only that, but would it really be such a loss to recieve less "random" and "irregular" guests? This is a community forum with regulars - and IMHO anyone that is willing to be as supportive as we'd like them to be should take the 60 seconds to create an account.

Generally speaking (and this is coming from an experienced network security analyst) there is a constant struggle of balance between "security" and "functionality" which is left for the netsec analyst to center. The same goes for a forum - you want to keep it secure without losing functionality (ie. your concern). It is a matter of how concerned the admins are about this spamming and people like "Ted Crosby" posting as a Guest harassing our members.

My only modification to my original suggestion would be: if you're going to permit guests to post, our mods need to be a bit more "agressive" in dealing with forum moderation (ie. being able to purge off topic, out of place, or inappropriate posts ... and monitoring the IP addresses of the guests to make sure they're not duplicate members, etc).

I've noticed already, as a moderator, that we're somewhat limited in power (a little less powerful than an average moderator on a forum) - which is fine - as long as the expectation of functon is the same as the power given to them. I could work wonders up and down the board if given the opportunity, but I'm giving myself time to acquaint myself with the extended permissions of "Mods" and the level of "Mod-type" participation.

In either care, there is more to be concerned about than a simple spammer - this could be developed further to cause this board some serious bottlenecks or even financial loss. I hope we get this worked out ASAP.

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 6:17 am Subject: Thanks

Thanks Cryptowizard and Roxette,

I learned one thing in life that never restricts people as much as possible. I do not want to force people to join our community; you can ask a query being a guest.

These spammers are changing there IP every time (may be a script), so putting a IP ban is not possible.

Let's delete the posts every time and request the spammer not to do it again. I believe 95% people in this world are good, let's not trouble those 95% for just 5%.

Denny

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 9:44 am Subject:

http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/5338

Wa la! Cool

You can thank me later! Wink

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:39 am Subject:

Can I thank you now? Well, thanks! Very Happy

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:55 am Subject: Simplicity

Let me see whether I can program something tommorow, thanks for the mod I have seen this mod before but I really want to give simple and easy things to people. I do not want to trouble them.

God help, give this spammer some brains that they can think something good Sad

.

Denny

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 2:44 pm Subject:

Denny if people won't give the rest of us the courtesy of registering their name and joining our community on behalf of the security of this forum ... then I think requiring them to enter a small code every time they post anonymously is easily warranted. This will literally only take an extra couple of seconds, yet will allow you to keep anonymous posting open -- and disallow spammers to post garbage.

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