In case you haven't noticed, we've been invaded by a couple...feel free to count in Scouse_Roar's conspiracy, anti-FFA,FFT comments as spam bot too.

;)

I'm chatting with KA on Twitter about it now. Trying to figure out a barrier intervention of sorts...

chatting, now isn't that a lovely word.

got a cuppa and some bikkies with that too?

I did actually. Not sure about KA though... :p

knowing KA it was cuppa and scones

Another one. Running rampant lately.

This one's even worse. The other ones at least weren't double and triple posting.

Another one...

I got Sseelin. Is there another one?

Would be good if we could purge them somehow.

In the short term 442 should introduce a captcha or mod approval to stop the bots from fucking the forum over.

Don't think so.

another one, LINSSEE

Can we have a mod in AF all the time? That way at least something can get done faster because at the moment the mods are pretty much always in other forums.

Cheers guys. Nabbed him. I'm on most of the time, And I'm trying to watch for them, but I do have other stuff to do to. The thing is, that was posting every 6 seconds. So even if I spot him minutes after he's joined, he's already got 20 posts away. I'm doing what I can, we're obviously going to have to figure something drastic out to fix this.

Or even add a couple of extra mods - we can't expect the guys to be vigilantly patrolling this site every time one pops up. The more we have the more chance we have of nipping it in the bud.

(Not suggesting me!)

Yeah, we totally understand - perhaps a delay after registering 'til you can post, perhaps a captcha system... seems to me like it's being exploited through commenting on the actual articles, seems like a loophole in the 'you can only post once every 30 seconds' rule.

I think we need to form a posse...and maybe another sheriff

:-k who could you mean? :-"

Are you really a General?

I wish I could see that image from work!

we now have a captcha system in place. I'm not convinced it will work though tbh.

Delete the f'n 'eefflin' spam please! ;) :p

Edited by GloryPerth: 3/9/2010 06:05:25 PM

It didn't. There is another one in WF.

That one got us good.

All bar 2 threads in AF. Jesus christ.

There was another one in WF that surprisingly only got 1 thread.

I think it's through commenting on articles, there must be a loophole that you can post faster commenting from the article directly than you can just doing it from the forums. Sew that loophole up and you'll be right.

I think something more like a cure is better. Like as has been suggested, disabling commenting for new users for a 24+hrs.

There's ano... oh no, it's just Joffa. :P

Easy tiger.

:lol:

when they've got a name like 'shoptrade97' they shouldn't even be allowed on in the first place :roll: ](*,)

yes, there's a new one

Yeah, he's the people of 2197's problem now.

Increasing the time delay between posts may help as well. By the sounds of things, these are automated bots that sign up and then run a script to spam all threads.

If necessary, there's another way to tell humans and computers apart - pose a question in the sign-up form for the forum where you need to actually go into the site to find the answer.

For example:

"What is FourFourTwo Australia's tagline?

Fill in the blank:

The _______ Football Website"

The better than TWGF Football Website?
The homoerotic Football Website?
The Ethnic vs Aussie Football Website?

That might work, depends on what has targeted the site. Some of those places have guys just sitting at computers all day in some third world country like laos or vietnam or new zealand who see the screenshot of the question/catchpa, tell the bot what the answer is and it spams it up.

The only real way to stop it is to prevent new user posting for a day or 2, and having admins checking out the account first.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

They are back. ffslin in AF

Where's my gun?

:cool:

At least it's not as frequent anymore...

haha81 - is not making me laugh...

Yet another invasion, and no mods.....time to make Joffa a mod I think.

man the barricades....circle the wagons....and where's my gun!

They don't give you a gun up front, you have to start with a feather duster. Once you master that you move onward and upward to the megaphone, then the capsicum spray, then the gun.

feather duster...pfft

Locked and Loaded ;)

But yeah, the invasion has started. we must band together, AND TAKE BACK WHAT IS OURS!!!!!

UNITE AND FIGHT!!!!!

UNCLE KEV WANTS YOU FOR FOURFOURTWO ARMY! SIGN UP TODAY

RALLY THE TROOPS, CLEAR THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN etc. etc.

Shit... I spoke too soon, didn't I? :(

has this sort of thing happened before, if so, how did you deal with it then?

On other non-football forums which I have modded and helped admin before, we used a CAPTCHA system, and the "questioning" system that I posted on the last page. We also had a system in place where you'd have to manually activate your account by having a valid email address and the time required between posts was limited to 60 seconds.

i agree with all of that except probably the 60 seconds rule

and another thing, why aren't you mods deleting all these spam bot posts rather than just editing them?

I was going to ask the same question. :p Also, why are their accounts still listed on the members page?

Edited by RedsUnited: 5/9/2010 11:41:57 AM

These things are destroying the forums, what sort of idiot actually thinks they are of value to their business?

Because if we delete their comments when they're the first comment on the article, the thread for that article can't come back. They're still listed because they're banned, not deleted. If you look, mk is still listed as well.

i am quite suspiscios of 'deaslin', the current 'newest member' on the forums...

... and it looks like my suspiscions were correct :(

Yeah, for fuck's sake...

If KA is reading this, then read this:

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=427852

If you're using phpBB of course... which I can't tell.

Edited by RedsUnited: 5/9/2010 09:32:41 PM

lock and load people....lock and load!

Edited by joffa: 5/9/2010 09:35:27 PM

Make it so new members can only post once they have posted more than 10 times - that'll stuff em. ;)

Seriously though, can you make No Spamming or Marketing a legal requirement/condition of membership that would give some legal avenue for billing them? Probably a waste of time given they can make up contact details and hotmail type accounts so easily - you'd never find the real person.

Would it be too difficult to set up provisional posting for new members (so all posts from newbies would sit somewhere for a couple of hours until released)? Would be annoying for genuine new members, but it would only have to be for a few posts to show their intentions.

They don't care. It'd be pretty much automated anyway.

Ba5tards!

Can you suspend all new members accounts and ask them to just send you an email to unlock it - hopefully make it harder for them. They would at least have to come up with different messages each time or you'd notice the sameness.

Perhaps a question on signup "Do you know a cheap shopping outlet" - anyone who answers yes gets canned.

Hah. I like that.

But seriously, the best and simplest way, that doesn't impact on real users nor cost admins time to activate an account, is a confirmation question like "Name the team. Perth _____"

Exactly.

wildcats!? :?

:p

Storm?

Got one of them before he hit double figures. I'm getting better at this.

Haha74 on the loose now... Didn't we kill a Haha before?

shoestrade. :P

Smartasses.

Name the Hyundai A-League Team, Perth _____

Good idea that from Mack I must say.

Good thing I've been away so I haven't seen much of this haha.

Simple question, disabling for 30mins-1hour, all good ideas.

Or simply, more mods :P

I like the more mods idea.

Or something which detects if someone's made the same post more than once and deletes them automatically.

Might save us from Paoktzi or that guy that always posts about local players and NQF

More mods isn't solving the problem. Spam bots will still show up. Its about prevention not hiding the problem.

Much like the proposed internet filter. Filtering child pornography doesn't solve the issue of child abuse. It just puts your head in the sand and pretend the problem doesn't exist.

don't wish to 'jinx' the forums or whatever but these spambots seem to have moved on... 8-[

i like this idea too :-" :-"

the easiest way is to have people type in a code or answer a question when they sign up

Seems like whatever you guys have done, it's working...

I think he has found 500 different ways to say this and relate it to every topic. Pretty sure I saw this in the WFMB thread!

It's bizarre, because he always types out a different post but manages to work it in and word it differently every time. Fucking irritating.

Fixed. ;)

Edited by anth: 15/9/2010 10:59:09 PM

KA and The Web Guy are standing at the gates in roman armour and fighting off the bots by themselves....

Its a small network pipe, so 2 users can easily stave off the attacks. The Battle of Thermopylae proved this ;)

but that leaves us vunerable to the inevitible TWGF invasion!

nogglekaty .....another spambot of sorts trying to flog off credit cards in the signature.

some guy that introduced himself in the 'introduce yourself here' thread was advertising online movies as well...

Was there any porn?? 8-[

didn't click it...

Thanks for the heads up Mus.