Hello all,
I don't know how and why, but spammer found my website URL.
Now, almost everyday there are being created 4-5 new spam users that spam the newsfeed.
I have got watchdog installed, also email address has to be verified.
Those bots manage to get around this!
This is a very bad publicity, this harms the site and the reputation is going down!
How can I prevent this? Can I somehow block them?
Maybe I should need to add a new and unknown field to "profile questions"?
It is very important... Thanks in advance!
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spammers! spammers! spammers! | Forum
Purusothaman Ramanujam
May 7 '13
A difficult problem for every one out here.. Not sure how spammers identify the sites just immediate hosting the site.
Anonymous
May 9 '13
Anonymous, have you updated your site to 1.5.2 or 1.5.3?
Have your spammers got anything in common? Like, email or avatar?
I have the latest 1.5.3 version installed.
As I said, watchdog installed also.
They do have things in common. Every time they register with the same names and avatars and they post the same links.
Those are bots, I am sure almost 100%.
I even tried to reconfig your captcha with more lines and higher perturbation value - with no success! :(
The Forum post is edited by Anonymous May 9 '13
Anonymous
May 9 '13
1. Can you please instruct me how I can integrate a different captcha script?
There are a lot of captcha's that seems to be stronger - for example you have to win a tic-tac-toe game or a flash captcha where you need to move elements within the picture.
The idea is the same almost everywhere - it passes a session variable and compares it with user input.
2. My website points to russian people. I tried to change oxwall's native captcha to show something like "five minus two" in russian language and to accept a value "three" (also in russian). But there are encoding problems - it won't show me the string. Is there a way to change the captcha to russian?
There are a lot of captcha's that seems to be stronger - for example you have to win a tic-tac-toe game or a flash captcha where you need to move elements within the picture.
The idea is the same almost everywhere - it passes a session variable and compares it with user input.
2. My website points to russian people. I tried to change oxwall's native captcha to show something like "five minus two" in russian language and to accept a value "three" (also in russian). But there are encoding problems - it won't show me the string. Is there a way to change the captcha to russian?
The Forum post is edited by Anonymous May 9 '13
Great_Day
May 9 '13
Most likely the spam accounts will come from the same ip range. If you run with a shared hosting service, you should be able to ban them in CPanel, or similar control panel. If you have run with a VPS / dedicated server you could try; https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fail2ban . That should solve your problem.
Anonymous
May 9 '13
Yes, but it will solve only local problem.
And what if tomorrow new spammers will arrive? - I have to waste all my time on running after spammers?
I need something 100%.
And what if tomorrow new spammers will arrive? - I have to waste all my time on running after spammers?
I need something 100%.
Great_Day
May 9 '13
There is nothing that is 100%. I manage a forum, that has over 10.000 members. We have only a capatcha plugin and an email verification. There are always spammers, I have to ban people average about once per two week. You can't do anything about that, only banning there email and ip address and hoping they will stay away...
Bots mostly come from the same network. Some times not, but you could at least try to ban them, there are also some known-spam lists, which include IP's from known bot-networks / spammers.
Like I said, there is nothing waterproof for spammers / bot-nets....
Steve Winter
May 9 '13
Fix already documented at http://www.oxwall.org/forum/topic/10751?page=1#post-54379
new
May 11 '13
Aliia i m having the same issue. My spam account usually have same kind of avatars and mostly places some links on Link Section. When i delete those account, they come back and most of the time, they have same user name. definitely harming my site... any help??
Team
Agent B
May 13 '13
I have the same problem, multi-accounts with inappropriate usernames joining every 5-10 minutes and spamming the newsfeed until I delete them off site..
MarkieMark67
May 13 '13
Changing users Roles so that new members can not post really helps. It's like the spammers know the roles and stop signing up when you do this...
Agent B
May 13 '13
^ good idea, but then you'd have to change the role of every individual member... y there no IP ban or similar feature?? :(
MarkieMark67
May 13 '13
U are correct it's a pain in the a$^. But hey it works. I have one spammer a week now. I use smart Captcha, and Anti Spammer plus I do restrict some countries with CloudFlare.
Pete
May 14 '13
jUST make a new user role for all new members and prevent them from posting anything ,then upgrade them to full member once you have checked them out ,just let them send messages ,play games etc,but dont let new people post on your forum .blogsgroups etc, and do not let them add any comments untill you make them a full member . you ont get any spam like this
Agent B
May 14 '13
I'm just having to mandatory accept users because I can tell who the spammer is.. I just wish I could simply block his IP from constantly making multi accounts. Like how isn't there such a feature to do so?
