Newbie questions...

JennM517 · 2010-02-25 5:28 pm

Hello all,

Firstly, I'm glad to have found this site, so thanks to those who have made it possible.

Long story short, I've owned a forum for about 11 years now but recently upgraded the site and the forum software. Prior to this I had to manually add new forum members the old-fashioned way, so spammers weren't an issue as I usually got a "note" with each application.

Initially I'd set the forum to accept all registrations without restriction (I know - lessons learned). So now I have it set up to have me approve them.

I'm using Drupal and I had someone set it up for me, so please forgive my lack of technical know-how.

My question is this.. I had a TON of spammers register (I have since purged most if not all), but only a very few ever posted. Once I was alerted to the spam posts, I deleted the posts, deleted/banned the poster. So why are all these entities registering if they aren't doing so to bombard my board with spam? Are there other risks I need to be worried about?

Once I realized what was happening (most are gmail users), I purged out all the ones that came up in a search on this site, and a few that I suspected that seemed to fit similar user name patterns etc. So I think I'm good now - I get about a dozen applications a day which I check against this site and most of them are deleted/banned also.

Thanks again for providing this resource to help keep the junk off my (and others') boards - and thanks for any additional insight.

Jenn

insektenfang · 2010-02-25 7:13 pm

Most are probably what are known as "Silent Spammers" - Accounts are opened simply to place profile links for search engine spiders to find, in the belief that this will improve ranking. Or, accounts may be left dormant for long periods before actually being used to spam your forum.

JennM517 · 2010-02-25 7:16 pm

Interesting. None that I deleted actually put any profile information on there.

Again, please forgive the elementary questions, but are these accounts set up by real people or are they using bots to create accounts all over the place, anywhere and everywhere?

The handful that did post usually advertised inexpensive male enhancement pharmaceuticals And inside the post would be a link. I didn't click any links, I just deleted the spam but one of my forum users (who alerted me to the spam), was foolish enough to click the link and she claimed it froze up her computer. I'm guessing it may have been a link to a site that might introduce malware to her computer?

I suggested that if any users see any spam before I do, that they just not click any links, and report it to me, so I can clean it up.

Jenn

insektenfang · 2010-02-25 7:23 pm

Largely bots performing initial registration, though CAPTCHA/ ReCAPTCHA codes are cracked by hand (imagine rooms full of people being paid a pittance to crack codes) and then the account gets handed back to a bot to flood your board with posts and/or PMs.

JennM517 · 2010-02-25 7:29 pm

Wow... colossal waste of time and resources, isn't it? After all, are there still people who actually respond to spam?

Fortunately I don't have a PM feature on this particular forum, they would only be able to post.

Checking my status logs, there have been lots of attempts to log into accounts I have banned, and if I get an IP addy on them, I ban that too so goodness knows how many more would try if they weren't banned outright.

I'm happy to have found this site, for sure. I just figured out how to report spammers using this site, but since I've got them all off (so far) I have nothing new to contribute yet. Thanks to others reporting, I check my new registrations against the database here. If there's a record of them here, I delete/ban.

Thanks for answering my questions. After perusing the forums, a lot of the chatter is in "technospeak" that I don't quite get (yet)...but I'm learning more each day.

I appreciate your patience!

Jenn

malamute · 2010-02-25 7:48 pm

I have found that names like GregGrabbyTite are generally 99% spammers.Names with lots of capitals in them.Also names like abcd123,xyz3456 seems like some kind of bot.I am mod on a china based forum (english)95% spammers 5% genuine users

insektenfang · 2010-02-25 8:42 pm

JennM517 wrote:

After all, are there still people who actually respond to spam?

I've been thinking that since the Nigerian Scam used to come in by fax some 20+ years ago.

Clearly there are enough naive and/or foolish people and/or idiots out there who are in desperate need of fake Viagra... to make it a worthwhile excercise for the spammers.

JennM517 · 2010-02-26 7:58 am

Heh true enough about the Nigerian scam... my old employer was just arrogant enough to buy it. I'm not sure if he actually lost money on it or not but I tried to warn him...

Most people just find spam so annoying they would never think of actually "purchasing" or whatnot. Since it's such big business I guess there are still a lot of patsies out there.

Weblord, I'm not that savvy to disable the code, but I will ask my friend who helps me out on the site. When something new/unusual comes up I ask her to teach me to fix it on my own, but I'll need her help to get that sorted.

Cheers,
Jenn

pedigree · 2010-02-26 7:59 am

http://www.419baiter.com/

insektenfang · 2010-02-26 5:21 pm

weblord wrote:

or you may disable html code in your forum so links placed are not clickable.

HTML code should be disabled by default, though having never used it I have no idea about Drupal. Otherwise, it is asking for malicious code to be inserted.

Links would be posted as bbcode and disabling that if the option is even available, would make for a very limited and rather boring board.

#1 2010-02-25 5:28 pm

Newbie questions...

#2 2010-02-25 7:13 pm

Re: Newbie questions...

#3 2010-02-25 7:16 pm

Re: Newbie questions...

#4 2010-02-25 7:23 pm

Re: Newbie questions...

#5 2010-02-25 7:29 pm

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#6 2010-02-25 7:48 pm

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#7 2010-02-25 8:42 pm

Re: Newbie questions...

#8 2010-02-26 7:58 am

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#9 2010-02-26 7:59 am

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#10 2010-02-26 5:21 pm

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