Completely new to this

maggiew · 2021-06-13 7:24 pm

Hi

I've read the sticky's. I signed up, joined the forum, got the API key. Then I got stuck whilst trying to make a report.

I found out about this site by doing a google search on a name that's signed up as a user on the website I'm looking after
https://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/67.198.205.42

I entered in his user name as a google search after discovering he'd signed up as a user for the website 11 times since March 2021. I only found him randomly because his name starts with a. On the first page of users, not hard to find.

We don't have a forum and we don't allow comments so I'm not really sure what he's up to. The reporting of him shows he's been inactive for 4 months but I can assure you he's extremely active. He has used different variations of his email addresses and different variations of his user names minutes apart on some days as recent as the 24th May 2021.

To report him I have to report him 11 times? Is that right? And I don't have his ip address as we don't use forums. I checked in cpanel and that doesn't show it either. I can see what it is from above but even I know how to use a vpn and I'm no expert. How do I know that's still his ip address?

How do I report him in bulk with a screen shot to perhaps an email address and how do I even find out what ip address he's currently using?

I really don't know much about spam, hacking, etc or can even comprehend why people bother except to hopefully get a sale of non existent *edit*. Is that all he's hoping to do? Promote spam on the website which doesn't have a forum and doesn't allow posts? He can annoy us in the contact us tab I guess, if he wants to sit there and click on traffic lights.

As far as I'm aware we aren't receiving any spam through that tab as yet. Wouldn't he have worked that out already on the 11 times he's signed up that he can't post anywhere? Wouldn't it be something they look for first? Or are these just bots randomly signing up wherever?

I guess what I want to know is this something I need to be concerned about? Or do I just delete him and not bother? Also he was easy to find because his name started with an a. Is there an easy way of finding any others like him or do I not worry about it?

Sorry, I want to help by reporting him but I don't know how to or that I even can help. Or is there a product that is sold to prevent this from happening? It's a Woocommerce site.

Thanks
Maggie

*edit* I had to remove my post into word and paste it back in paragraph by paragraph to work out what the banned word was that was stopping me from posting. I knew there were no swear words, it wasn't the ip address or the url. It was a reference to an clothing item that someone could potentially spam the website with. Could you please perhaps add a list of banned words in the faq's for novices like me?

Alex Kemp · 2021-06-13 8:06 pm

Hi maggiew, welcome to SFS.

I'm not at all sure that you *can* report this user into the SFS Database (DB).

There are 4 requirements that all need to be positive before someone can be reported:-

Have they spammed your forum?
Do you have their your-site username?
Do you have their confirmed email address?
Do you have their IP Address (the one used to post the spam)?

If the answer to all 4 is 'yes' then you can report them into the DB
(the last 3 items are *required* to be able to post; we advise the 1st item to also be posted as "Evidence").

Since you say:

maggiew wrote:

We don't have a forum and we don't allow comments

…you cannot report this user here.

Now obviously, you can block anyone you wish from your site; your site, your rules. But you cannot report them here; our site, our rules.

You are welcome to use the API to discover users that you do not want browsing your site. It is certainly true that spammers tend to be poor house-guests. But, you cannot report any bad actors that you find. This is a site to report forum-spammers, not abusers. Sorry.

maggiew · 2021-06-13 8:22 pm

Hi Alex

Thank you for replying. And thank you for this site because without being able to search for that users name I wasn't really sure what was going on. I had 6 attacks on my FB account yesterday linked to a new Friend of a Friend. Then I found this. I doubt they're linked but I really didn't know what to do.

So I can't report him, no. Yes I have proof of user name and email address but no, there's no ip address as we don't allow posts or comments and we have no forum.

So can I safely guess that I can delete him and he's really of nothing more than annoyance to us? I have run a forum before and I know it's far more than that for you. I'm not being light hearted about it.

Thank you again
Maggie

Alex Kemp · 2021-06-14 8:04 am

Well, good luck with it, Maggie. I ran a website + forum myself & know what a freaking pain such abusers can be.

SFS is very effective at preventing forum abuse, so it is no surprise that those suffering from both email spam + website abuse want to be able to use SFS to not just discover potential abusers but also report them. Of course, one of the reasons that we are so effective is because of the way that we maintain our limits - forum spam only.

My final advice to you will be to emphasise the need to cache results if you use the API programmatically to auto-discover abusers. In the early days — and still occasionally — we get folks effectively using SFS as a firewall by auto-polling the API on *every* IP visit. That will bring this site down pretty quickly. Such people go permanently into our actual Firewall. The way to avoid that is to 1) concentrate on email addresses, and 2) cache all results locally.

Glad to have helped you.

maggiew · 2021-06-14 11:53 am

Hi Alex

I stumbled across him by accident. I'm just deciding whether to delete him or leave him there. I guess if I delete he'll only re-register. Maybe he'll get the hint, we don't have a forum. No matter how many times you sign up it's not going to have any impact. There's 2 days where he signed up a twice, a minute apart. He must be using some kind of bot system. But if we didn't have a forum the previous minute it was pretty unlikely we were going to have it a minute later. I don't believe I can block his email address, and they're not genuine anyway. And I don't know his ip address so I can't block that.

There's no doubt more of them. His was just obvious as it was on the first page in alpha order a. with similar user names in a row.

No, I'm not setting up anything to auto discover abusers. I'd probably look into that further if we had a forum but they use a FB chat page for that. Which is great for me because I don't have to deal with that side of it.

However, FB is changing and I'm not sure how much longer that is going to be in action for, so there may be a point in the future where we do need a forum. At least now I know where to come for help now when we get spammers and to look into prevention.

Thank you for your help
Maggie

Alex Kemp · 2021-06-14 3:26 pm

maggiew wrote:

I don't believe I can block his email address, and they're not genuine anyway.

No point in obtaining someone's email address if you cannot confirm it to be genuine.

Every modern forum software uses the same method to confirm email addresses. All such forum software is open-source, so you can examine that to find how they do it. In essence, it works like this:-

Ask the potential user to create a unique username
Ask for & store the username / email address / ip address in a site database, marking it as temporary
Supply via the email address a time-limited one-time website link to confirm the new user

The last step contains a unique variable that at your site identifies the new user. Your software then transforms the temporary username into a permanent username. In that way you have confirmed that the email is genuine.

#1 2021-06-13 7:24 pm

Completely new to this

#2 2021-06-13 8:06 pm

Re: Completely new to this

#3 2021-06-13 8:22 pm

Re: Completely new to this

#4 2021-06-14 8:04 am

Re: Completely new to this

#5 2021-06-14 11:53 am

Re: Completely new to this

#6 2021-06-14 3:26 pm

Re: Completely new to this

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