WHO KEEPS SPAMMING E.S ?

[o00scorpion00o]

Seriously it's getting annoying!

I saw something I don't ever want to see here again yesterday!!!

[Miles]

We're doing our best to combat it!

[neptronix]

It's been pretty bad lately.
I'm a little shocked no basic PHP script / plugin has been written to combat this in all the years of vBulletin development.
A pretty simple algorithm would smack down over 1/2 the spam we see here. The patterns are quite obvious.

ES Mods, if you cry uncle over the spam, let me know. I do believe i have a partial solution in mind. I write PHP for a living. Send me a PM if you'd like help.

[gestalt]

Mayhaps there is some ronin haxor we can employ to our cause. I'm sure our fiefdom has enough ryu between us to buy the services of such a one.

[Miles]

Most likely we're on a list..... Half of the people who are registering at the moment are spammers.....

[o00scorpion00o]

It's been pretty bad lately.
I'm a little shocked no basic PHP script / plugin has been written to combat this in all the years of vBulletin development.
A pretty simple algorithm would smack down over 1/2 the spam we see here. The patterns are quite obvious.

ES Mods, if you cry uncle over the spam, let me know. I do believe i have a partial solution in mind. I write PHP for a living. Send me a PM if you'd like help.

How does that work ? I'm not a software man at all lol

[liveforphysics]

Most likely we're on a list..... Half of the people who are registering at the moment are spammers.....

Add a couple of questions to the registration process?

An amp of current at a volt of potential equals _____ unit of power.

[neptronix]

How does that work ? I'm not a software man at all lol

Easy... i wrote some PHP lines that do this kind of thing for my company recently.
Spammers started to figure out how to use our contact form.
I set up a system where it would look for various 'red flags', or patterns that previous spammers had used.
If the system detected a certain amount of red flags, it would just not send the message, but it would log to a debug file.. just in case we had missed some legitimate customer contact.

Couple patterns i've seen on ES, just from the outside:

1) spammer signs up, makes 3-5 posts almost immediately.
2) If there is not a link in the message, there is nonsense in the message and a link in the signature.
3) If there is a link to the profile/signature, it probably consists of domain . extension & no link to a directory or html, php, jsp etc after that.

I would also bet there are repeat offender IP blocks that can just be straight up banned permanently.
Time between posts for a new user, and time between registration and first post are 2 big tipoffs.

There are probably other signs. Nowadays, spammers are quite sophisticated though, so you always have to stay 1 step ahead.

Back in the day when i administrated a bunch of mail servers, i could cut half the spam flow by just auto spam foldering words like 'viagra', 'v1agra', 'VlAGRA' ( with an lower case L instead of an I ), etc.

Luke's idea of more questions would help some.

[REdiculous]

How does that work ? I'm not a software man at all lol

if (weThinkUserIsSpammer(user_id) || weThinkPostIsSpam(post_id)) doSomethingAboutTheSpam(user_id, post_id);

[o00scorpion00o]

How does that work ? I'm not a software man at all lol

if (weThinkUserIsSpammer(user_id) || weThinkPostIsSpam(post_id)) doSomethingAboutTheSpam(user_id, post_id);

Now that looks a lot like spam to me!!!

[o00scorpion00o]

How does that work ? I'm not a software man at all lol

Easy... i wrote some PHP lines that do this kind of thing for my company recently.
Spammers started to figure out how to use our contact form.
I set up a system where it would look for various 'red flags', or patterns that previous spammers had used.
If the system detected a certain amount of red flags, it would just not send the message, but it would log to a debug file.. just in case we had missed some legitimate customer contact.

Couple patterns i've seen on ES, just from the outside:

1) spammer signs up, makes 3-5 posts almost immediately.
2) If there is not a link in the message, there is nonsense in the message and a link in the signature.
3) If there is a link to the profile/signature, it probably consists of domain . extension & no link to a directory or html, php, jsp etc after that.

I would also bet there are repeat offender IP blocks that can just be straight up banned permanently.
Time between posts for a new user, and time between registration and first post are 2 big tipoffs.

There are probably other signs. Nowadays, spammers are quite sophisticated though, so you always have to stay 1 step ahead.

Back in the day when i administrated a bunch of mail servers, i could cut half the spam flow by just auto spam foldering words like 'viagra', 'v1agra', 'VlAGRA' ( with an lower case L instead of an I ), etc.

Luke's idea of more questions would help some.

Interesting, but programming is beyond me!

Why do they do it, especially if there is no links, does it give them a buzz or something ?

[liveforphysics]

They do it because someone somewhere pays someone else $0.0001 for each time they have a new unique user click some link.

[Ykick]

Marty explained in another thread they do it in order to move up on search engines. Apparently ES has standing and they're trying to ride those coat tails. Doesn't need to be links as keywords will direct hits to sites anyway.

[bigmoose]

Calling MRVass... calling MRVass you are needed in the server room!

[chroot]

Another spamming in E-Bike Photos& Video section. rid spammer please!

[neptronix]

Bit frustrating because a simple script would prevent this particular instance..

[amberwolf]

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