Spam on the decrease?

pedigree · 2011-01-06 4:33 pm

This article on the BBC news site says that they are

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12126880

JamesC · 2011-01-06 4:56 pm

I'm getting 4-5x more registration attempts on the forum (as others have noted in other threads), and close to 3x the spam in my personal email than I did just two weeks ago.

If BBC thinks otherwise, they're at least two weeks behind the times.

heenan73 · 2011-01-06 11:34 pm

The BBC isn't guessing, and their graph shows that they have evidence.

But they are talking about email spam - the increase in forum spam may be a direct result of spammers getting poor returns on email spam.

Last edited by heenan73 (2011-01-07 1:39 pm)

mrslotcar · 2011-01-07 10:09 am

Our forum before 2011 was hit maybe only once a week by spammers!
Come Jan 1st, and we have filtered out probably 30 or more!
What the hell is happening?

Coxy914 · 2011-01-07 1:44 pm

mrslotcar wrote:

Our forum before 2011 was hit maybe only once a week by spammers!
Come Jan 1st, and we have filtered out probably 30 or more!
What the hell is happening?

I'm glad it's not just my forum then!

Same statistics as you sadly.
Had 14 attempted registrations from spammers this morning alone.

I changed the settings so I needed to activate each new members account about a year ago (VBulletin forum) and it's easier to weed out the spammers before they have chance to post.
Also changed the settings so they cannot send pm's as the default setting on VB allows unregistered members to send pm's which can also be a problem.

I'd say about 95% of them register with a gmail account. We did try stopping people registering with gmail accounts for a while but there are some genuine people who have gmail accounts out there!!!!!

If they have a username which looks genuine, then I use this site to cross reference prior to accepting them.

99gagtx · 2011-01-07 1:58 pm

On the decrease? Not on my site. I had about 40 on wednesday. 80 yesterday. And 75 more in the past 9 hours. And those were just the ones the moderators and I caught.

I'm on an auto forum. Don't know if that makes a difference or not. But there's been a spammer explosion on my site since new years. : (

Most of ours are registered with gmail accounts too.

Last edited by 99gagtx (2011-01-07 2:00 pm)

Coxy914 · 2011-01-07 2:11 pm

I run an Audi forum and I know a Saab forum has been hit in the same way as well.

Wizzle · 2011-01-07 2:16 pm

The article was talking about "email" spam.
What gets me is, they know where and who is spamming....yet do little to nothing about it. Now if they made it profitable to stop them....

kpatz · 2011-01-07 2:22 pm

Coxy914 wrote:

I run an Audi forum and I know a Saab forum has been hit in the same way as well.

What Audi forum do you run? I'm on a few of the bigger ones (Audizine, AudiWorld, Audi Forums).

As for my site, it's been eerily quiet since New Year's. Only 2 or 3 attempted registrations by known spammers. I have one suspicious one too.

Coxy914 · 2011-01-07 2:24 pm

www.classic-audi.co.uk

99gagtx · 2011-01-07 2:39 pm

kpatz wrote:

As for my site, it's been eerily quiet since New Year's. Only 2 or 3 attempted registrations by known spammers. I have one suspicious one too.

You can have some of mine if you're bored. LOL. (just kidding)

Last edited by 99gagtx (2011-01-07 2:40 pm)

Coxy914 · 2011-01-07 7:37 pm

well, 26 more this afternoon..

not sure why the sudden increase, but my suggestion for those that don't do it, is to change registration to pre approved else you're going to end up spending most of this weekend filtering out spam.

Dave B · 2011-01-07 9:18 pm

Glad I found this place. Also sorry to see I am not alone with the recent increase in spammers. My forum moved from Social Strata to vBulletin last month and since then I've had as many as 30 spammers awaiting approval per day. Well over 150 attempts in the past 3 weeks. I hated to put new accounts in moderation mode but had no choice. Sure does eat up my time culling the good from the bad. This is a lot more than we previously experienced.

orldsmadmin · 2011-01-07 9:30 pm

Attempts at getting signed up on my site have gone through the roof. I have had 41 successful spammers get though. I have also had to put sign up in moderation mode as well as putting up a few new things to help filter out the bots. I'm not sure who figured out how to get the bots to recognize, read and replicate the captcha but i wish they hadn't.

Great site glad to be a member here I hope to be a beneficial member.
JP

scottinaz · 2011-01-07 10:29 pm

I just disabled new registrations until this dies down......

scottinaz · 2011-01-07 10:31 pm

pedigree wrote:

This article on the BBC news site says that they are
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12126880

They are focusing on forums now,,,,

99gagtx · 2011-01-07 11:01 pm

scottinaz wrote:

I just disabled new registrations until this dies down......

I think I may be doing this also. I've had over 100 spammers today alone. And I haven't reached the peak spambot time yet.

zaphod · 2011-01-08 6:12 am

I've had one get through the gauntlet.

He dead now. Busted a SFS cap in his ass.

Zap

99gagtx · 2011-01-08 3:34 pm

Good shot, man. LOL

I think it's time for a new anti-spam measure to be developed. Captcha doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore. The spambots are now working around it. My final tally for yesterday was 125.

Fire God · 2011-01-08 3:48 pm

99gagtx wrote:

Good shot, man. LOL
I think it's time for a new anti-spam measure to be developed. Captcha doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore. The spambots are now working around it. My final tally for yesterday was 125.

Yeah it is getting hard for a human like me to get past some of those damn things now. The latest 3d one that I went through, I failed at twice.

99gagtx · 2011-01-08 4:07 pm

I've run into those. I fail one. And "refreshed" to ask for a new one because I just had no clue what it was supposed to be. Maybe I should of gotten a spambot to figure it out for me? LOL.

pedigree · 2011-01-08 4:10 pm

The captchas that throw me the most are the question ones.... this one in particular

How do you keep your wife happy?

No idea...

heenan73 · 2011-01-08 4:50 pm

"divorce" or "die" spring to mind, but I'm guessing.

And nothing personal

hhopper · 2011-01-08 7:21 pm

How do you keep your wife happy?

Money.

Hop

99gagtx · 2011-01-09 1:11 am

pedigree wrote:

The captchas that throw me the most are the question ones.... this one in particular
How do you keep your wife happy?
No idea...

So that site only has female members then?

#1 2011-01-06 4:33 pm

Spam on the decrease?

#2 2011-01-06 4:56 pm

Re: Spam on the decrease?

#3 2011-01-06 11:34 pm

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#4 2011-01-07 10:09 am

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#5 2011-01-07 1:44 pm

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#6 2011-01-07 1:58 pm

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