• Welcome to AlpineZone, the largest online community of skiers and snowboarders in the Northeast!

    You may have to REGISTER before you can post. Registering is FREE, gets rid of the majority of advertisements, and lets you participate in giveaways and other AlpineZone events!

September spam-athon

bvibert

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Aug 30, 2004
Messages
30,394
Points
38
Location
Torrington, CT
We invited them to artificially boost the traffic numbers to the site...

Seriously no clue, I guess they just recognize how awesome AZ is???
 

Glenn

Active member
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Messages
7,691
Points
38
Location
CT & VT
Revenge of FullerWycliff. Take that clouderators!

:lol:
 
Last edited:

Nick

Administrator
Staff member
Administrator
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
13,176
Points
48
Location
Bradenton, FL
Website
www.alpinezone.com
I might ban some more IP addresses. They have been blasting the site. Luckily it's easy to purge all the posts at once, but they get 20, 30 posts in a few minutes.
 

Fuller Wycliff

New member
Joined
Aug 9, 2011
Messages
18
Points
0
i hate spammers.

i do love the sunshine and free power it provides.

a nice sunny day here in my neighborhood. i think i'll work on my tan.
 

billski

Active member
Joined
Feb 22, 2005
Messages
16,207
Points
38
Location
North Reading, Mass.
Website
ski.iabsi.com
I might ban some more IP addresses. They have been blasting the site. Luckily it's easy to purge all the posts at once, but they get 20, 30 posts in a few minutes.

Hi Nick,

I've tried IP Ban on my site, but they infest so many machines that it become impossible. You may need to gate who gets accepted as a member.

Thanks,
 

andyzee

New member
Joined
Sep 14, 2004
Messages
10,884
Points
0
Location
Home
Website
www.nsmountainsports.com
Banning IP addresses isn't the way to go. I've been very lucky getting mine down to almost nothing (DHS is the exception :razz: ) and the few that come through aren't seen by the membership unless I want them to be, some are entertaining.

Here's what I learned, of course all phpBB stuff, but I'm sure it can be translated to vBulletin:

Most spammer use UTC - 12 (Baker Island Time) as their Timezone, I put code in to automatically delete anyone using this timezone (no on lives there), code is as follows:


if ($data['tz'] == -12.00)
{
die('Die, bot! Die.');

That cut spammers greatly, but didn't get rid of them all. Some came through with a +12, which I think is like New Zealand/Fiji through that into the code as well, That cut spammers to about 10%. Not sure what vBulletin has, but phpBB has a setting for new members, where you choose how many posts you allow them to make before they become regular members. Doing this, any posts they make needs to be reviewed by me to be allowed or not. When I see this, I check it out, if it look real, I take them out of the new member group, if not, I delete. Hope this helps. But believe me, you will go nuts trying to ban IPs
 

deadheadskier

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Mar 6, 2005
Messages
27,921
Points
113
Location
Southeast NH
This forum does have the option of having posts from new users approved by the Admin or Moderators. Both under Greg and Nick, we've discussed employing the feature, but decided against it.

As annoying as spam is, it's somewhat unwelcoming to new members to have to wait to post, especially given the last minute Beta needed in the sport of skiing. This site gets lots of traffic through google for people looking for last minute updates on ski conditions, deals being offered by ski areas or even sales on gear . Greg was very involved on the site as Admin, Nick equally so. We have a large moderating staff that could approve new posts but, we're not always here.

It would suck for someone if they found Alpinzone via google on a Thursday night because they booked a family vacation for the weekend and Friday morning beta from the resorts says mixed precip, when in actuality there is heavy rain and it might make sense for someone to cancel their plans. If by chance one of us is not around to approve their post, it would be a disservice to the new member to not get the Beta from the community that they're looking for. So, that delay could mean they may not come back to the site in the future.

Spam does suck. It does happen several times a day on this site these days. Some of your suggestions on settings might really help lessen the spam here a lot Andy. Overall though, I'd say the average lifespan of a spambot on Alpinezone is under an hour. From 5AM to 2AM pretty much everyday, either Nick or a mod will be on and it takes 5 seconds to delete the spam and ban the spambot.

Appreciate your feedback though. I'm the least computer savvy of all on the AZ staff. Perhaps some of the controls you suggest could help reduce the amount of spam we delete.
 

Nick

Administrator
Staff member
Administrator
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
13,176
Points
48
Location
Bradenton, FL
Website
www.alpinezone.com
A lot of the spammers were under the same IP. Its not a perfect system but the last few days have been better. Ill continue to monitor it, but i definitely dont want to force users to need to wait for admin approval. I do haveto check in on the flood control. The forum defult is 15sec but it doesnt appear to actually work. In the mentime please continue to reportany spam you see. Thanks

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
 

andyzee

New member
Joined
Sep 14, 2004
Messages
10,884
Points
0
Location
Home
Website
www.nsmountainsports.com
Yeah, it's a good suggestion. I'm trying to avoid blanket removing people but if it works I will try. The spam has actually been way down in the past few days, which is good.

Just as an FYI as to where this comes from. When a new user signs in he may see EST as we are in the east. Spam bots on the other hand are scripted and they just go for the first choice on the list I later found they also go for the last choice, that would make it GMT -12 and GMT +12
 

bvibert

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Aug 30, 2004
Messages
30,394
Points
38
Location
Torrington, CT
Just as an FYI as to where this comes from. When a new user signs in he may see EST as we are in the east. Spam bots on the other hand are scripted and they just go for the first choice on the list I later found they also go for the last choice, that would make it GMT -12 and GMT +12

A quick check of the last 20 or so banned spammers shows the majority used the forum default of GMT-4. The rest were scattered around, but none were GMT-12 or GMT+12.
 

Nick

Administrator
Staff member
Administrator
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
13,176
Points
48
Location
Bradenton, FL
Website
www.alpinezone.com
Just as an FYI as to where this comes from. When a new user signs in he may see EST as we are in the east. Spam bots on the other hand are scripted and they just go for the first choice on the list I later found they also go for the last choice, that would make it GMT -12 and GMT +12

I don't think they are bots though. I think the initial registration is done manually. You'll notice some spammers make a few posts first to try to get under the radar. They will go in a thread and reply with something like "This is so interesting, thanks for posting it!" and then like 3 days later they explode in spam.

These far east IP's are done by actual people often getting paid fractions of a cent to join forums manually, because they can actually get by the spam blocker questions.
 

bvibert

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Aug 30, 2004
Messages
30,394
Points
38
Location
Torrington, CT
I don't think they are bots though. I think the initial registration is done manually. You'll notice some spammers make a few posts first to try to get under the radar. They will go in a thread and reply with something like "This is so interesting, thanks for posting it!" and then like 3 days later they explode in spam.

Or they throw a few of those BS posts out there and come back a few days later to add spam links to their signature.
 

billski

Active member
Joined
Feb 22, 2005
Messages
16,207
Points
38
Location
North Reading, Mass.
Website
ski.iabsi.com
Or they throw a few of those BS posts out there and come back a few days later to add spam links to their signature.

How many new users do you get per day?
I have a discussion group that grabs only about 10 per week. As you say, the innocent but non-specific comments or compliments get zapped by me right away in moderated acceptance mode.
 
Top