PM's and spam

[admin]

just wanted to check to see if everyone is getting their pm's?
on the tool bar you will note "my messages" and if there is a number attached
it means you have a message(s)

also a note on the war against spammers, so far this in a month i have banned and deleted
over 50 of these bums from our forum, those that post text about their male issues drugs
are bad enough, but we had one that posted full on full size extreme porno on our forum
luckily i caught it quickly and i belief few if any of the members were exposed to this crap.

i am working on putting together a group of moderators whose primary job is to manage specific
forum and also reign as ruthless overlords over spammers of all types.  Quite frankly i am so tired
of spammers i don't care if one of our new moderators catches one of these fools and butchers him in
public and hangs his carcas at the gate a warning to others,,, sadly this can't be done i guess.

all i know is it takes an inordinate amount of time banning and cleaning up after these spammers
and some days there are many, (had 5-6 in about 3 hours a few days ago) and the problem looks to be getting worse.

thankfully it looks like they are coming primarily from email addy's other than gmail accounts, although gmail spammers are not uncommon, so i am thinking of banning the majority abuser group
because it appears they are not from our membership pool anyway,, this will leave more time to deal with those that are gmail users so we won't have to ban those that use that email service and end up alienating some of our active members.

anyway just wanted to let everyone know of all the behind the scenes news and what happens to keep this place running

thanks for everyones patience

admin

[dubbleUJay]

Sorry Admin, I read this thread after I posted an idea in the following thread:  
http://www.microcogen.info/index.php?topic=199.0


Modified
I copied & pasted my thread to here were it belong! Sorry again! 

I've been known @home 2 come up with "wacky" ideas,  but hear me out please!

I've noticed that we're getting a few spam posts recently and its only going to get worse!   

I also have no idea how the forum software works, but I presume one can chose between auto & manual registering (Screening 1st by admin)   
Can someone that knows tell me if its at all possible to run new user accounts that want to register, through a Google (Gmail) account first, auto register the ones going through and then maybe checking/reviewing the ones caught in Google's spam filter?
Can one Forward applicants requests from the forum software to Gmail and setup Gmail to forward what comes out back to the forum admin. I use this way to get email reminders on my cellphone.
This might be a 2nd or 3rd layer of defense and make moderators work a bit easier!

I mean, how many people does actually register in a month, couldn't be to many   
I've got a Google account and their spam filters are doing a great job so far, so why re-invent the wheel?
I get about 5 emails a day that I see, looking at my spam folder that I cleaned about 2 weeks ago, there are 144 emails that's been filtered out up to now and I've once had a legitimate email filtered as spam since I've had my account (+/- 4 years)

I dunno, maybe its just wishful thinking or Admin can ask the forum guys, any comments?

dubbleUJay

[mkdutchman]

admin,

FWIW, I've seen a couple of forums where they had to take some extreme measures to keep the spammers out. One measure that proved very effective was posting the spammers username and password in public. Seems a lot of spammers use the same username and password everywhere they go. The beauty of this approach was that it made the spammer extremely vulnerable, they might as well have had a bounty on their heads.......

[mkdutchman]

One other thing, the read-all-unread-topics function is not working for me. It just says "you have no unread messages" 

admin,
thanks for all the time and effort you put into this forum

[admin]

sadly i don't have access to their passwords, if i did we could set aside a section and make a billboard
to return some of the bullcrap they bring here.

admin

[admin]

quite the contrary
we have one very persistant spammer, he has posted here many times using different IP's
and is about to piss me off big time

he goes by the name "urigh"

to if you can catch him, you have my permission to beat him senseless



admin

[dubbleUJay]

Ok, so he posts here many times ..... what would posting his password do for you ? How would it annoy the spammer if you published his password ?

Jens

Then anyone can log in as him and write stuff like "Hi my name is urigh and I'm the biggest @$$ since donkeys" and such!   

or simply change his password so he cannot get into his own account! 

dubbleUJay

[dubbleUJay]

IMHO that is just a waste of time and effort. It will only bring more attention to the spam. Best to delete it and be done with it.

Jens

Ur probably right Jens, it will just make the person more determent/aggravated/vindictive as he already have to much time on his hand posting all the $h!t.
My tongue was in my cheek when I answered u and not out of my

I think the only real way to get to these guy's/gal's is to find out who their mother/father/siblings are and threatening them with some serious "damage!" 

dubbleUJay

[mkdutchman]

IMHO that is just a waste of time and effort. It will only bring more attention to the spam. Best to delete it and be done with it.

Jens

Quite the opposite, spammers tend to use the same password for multiple forums, so if you have access to one you have access to all.......

You never experienced the fun of dogging a spammer across multiple forums and networks?   you're missing out  

And yes, by all means delete the spam

[AdeV]

Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately; depending on your viewpoint); most forum systems - SMF included - store the password as a one-way encrypted string. Attempting to decrypt requires skills and computing power that most of us don't posess. The only way to determine the password is with a brute force attack. Given a copy of the database, I could probably come up with a program which brute-forced the passwords, provided you all used dictionary words, no numbers, and no case (you DID use numbers, upper & lower case, and ideally symbols in your password, didn't you?); but it would take ages and consume resources I'd prefer to deploy elsewhere AND it would have to be repeated every time a new password needed decrypting...

IMHO, life's too short, and we've all got lister(oid)/changfa/etc. projects - amongst other things, no doubt - to be getting on with. Of course, if you luck into a spammer password, by all means go for the jugular!

[mkdutchman]

AdeV,
You're right of course

I need to get on with life and my projects 

But come to think of it, I haven't tormented a spammer for awhile

Too bad SMF encrypts its passwords

If you get a kick out of spammers tormented, tables turned on scammers, etc..........http://thescambaiter.com/forum/