Spambot Plague

[Cherrymage]

In recent times, spambots are getting more frequent with their commercial advertisements in the Off-Topic section. It's becoming increasingly common. How do we deal with the Spambots?

I think I have an idea. Look for the thread titles, any title containing any web address especially "http" should not be accepted by the system. One recurring pattern of these spambots are they will straightaway use web addresses as their thread titles.

 

[Dr Super Good]

One could lockout off topic for 1 week after creating an account. This should at least delay them.

 

[Abovegame]

One could lockout off topic for 1 week after creating an account. This should at least delay them.

On some forums you can't post more than once until your first post is reviewed,ensuring that you are not a spambot and whatnot.

 

[Cherrymage]

One could lockout off topic for 1 week after creating an account. This should at least delay them.

Problem is, the Introduction and Roleplaying sub-forums are there as well. Maybe restrict it only to the Off-Topic general forums itself?
Also, who knows, the bots may post their garbage in other forums too. Not just Off Topic. I've seen some of these posted in other places, though it's not as common as spams in Off Topic.

And require email verification before being allowed to post, or let newbies wait for 1 week if they don't verify their email? That way, it'll be a better idea,

On some forums you can't post more than once until your first post is reviewed,insuring that you are not a spambot and whatnot.

Good idea

 

[Dr Super Good]

On some forums you can't post more than once until your first post is reviewed,ensuring that you are not a spambot and whatnot.

Good luck implementing that... This really annoys new people.

And require email verification before being allowed to post, or let newbies wait for 1 week if they don't verify their email? That way, it'll be a better idea,

I am pretty sure email verification is already used.

 

[Cherrymage]

I am pretty sure email verification is already used.

How about CAPTCHAs then?

 

[Daffa]

The registration used CAPTCHA if I recall.
The problem lies if these bots are semi-human controlled. The current procedure is simplifying things but the downside is that bot plague coming. At least having verified emails slow them down.

 

[Abovegame]

There already are programs that can solve captcha.Now there is also a type of captcha that makes you select pictures that contain some object, not sure if this is also solvable yet.

 

[Misha]

I dunno how helpful this is, but should we treat the spambots ( and new people ) with the requirement to upload a resource? oO model, skin, spell.. and whoever contacts the staff is left with them judging if he's wanting to plant a bot or not..
Iunno.. there should be something that new peeps would like to do, and be a part of the community, and keep the bots out

 

[Shar Dundred]

Hmm. I don't think there is much we can do besides the things that are already being done.

Some people create their accounts because they have a question, want to rate a resource
or need help RIGHT NOW, not a week later. When they get delayed like that, they will probably
never log in again and simply not care - or they will be pissed when the week is over.
Forcing new users to upload a resource sounds like a bad idea, look around, how many users do
we have who have 0 uploaded resources even after years of activity? Or how many log in because
they just STARTED a project? We wouldn't want them to upload some unfinished WIP stuff just to meet
the requirement.
No, this is not a good idea and could completely disable Hive from getting any new users at all.

Disabling people for a week for the Off Topic board alone *could* work, but it could also just make
the bots post in other boards, couldn't it?

I'm sorry, but I don't think there is much the site itself can do about this besides what is already being used.
The best way to deal with this is continuing to report threads & posts that obviously are made of
unwanted advertisement only.
As
@Directive255 already mentioned, threads with a website as title are very likely to be nothing but unwanted ads.

 

[Chaosy]

I say we disable the feature to post completely to be on the safe side.

 

[RiotZ]

Just use CAPTCHA every time someone posts a thread, or better yet, just for people whose accounts are newer than say, 3 months. I know some people are going to say this is a nuisance, but you have to do a CAPTCHA to literally do anything online, from upload a photo to a hosting service to log into facebook (sometimes.)

If you're posting so many threads that doing a quick CAPTCHA is becoming a nuisance then you might be the guy who owns a bot.

 

[Ralle]

Is it really that much of a problem? As administrator I have a single button to press when someone is an advertiser which takes 100% care of it. Just report things and it will be handled within hours.

 

[Misha]

shouldn't prevention be a nicer thing than cleaning up? Ouo

 

[pyf]

As for me, that would spoil my fun.


The Agents sent by the Matrix can not dodge our bullets forever

 

[Hotwer]

shouldn't prevention be a nicer thing than cleaning up? Ouo

It depends on how harmful the spam bots are. If they're destroying the whole forum, we need a way to prevent then from doing it. By now, they've only created up to 4 posts, at most I have seen. The difficulty in finding out what is human to what is not is the bigger problem.
And sure, if any bot is doing unhuman things that annoys humans, that should easily preventable (for the most part).

 

[Naze]

Just use CAPTCHA every time someone posts a thread, or better yet, just for people whose accounts are newer than say, 3 months.

Well this is actually a good solution (however 3 months is too long, as most bots register and then go creating threads just after that).

But above all, it isn't really a nuisance, just like Ralle said.

 

[pyf]

It depends on how harmful the spam bots are. If they're destroying the whole forum, we need a way to prevent then from doing it. By now, they've only created up to 4 posts, at most I have seen. The difficulty in finding out what is human to what is not is the bigger problem.
And sure, if any bot is doing unhuman things that annoys humans, that should easily preventable (for the most part).

@Hotwer: what Naze and Ralle said. They can be very easily spotted.

If we try to block them, then those behind them will try to outsmart us.

In recent times, spambots are getting more frequent with their commercial advertisements in the Off-Topic section. It's becoming increasingly common. How do we deal with the Spambots?

I am currently experimenting with the use of derision, in a not offensive way, as a weapon of sorts against them. That is enough imho to effectively sabotage the promotion of the product or service they try to advertise here on THW.

 

[Cherrymage]

I am currently experimenting the use of derision, in a not offensive way, as a weapon of sorts against them. That is enough imho to effectively sabotage the promotion of the product or service they try to advertise here on THW.

Nice idea. It also make us have a good laugh too.
If the spambots come again, do show your magic. It makes everyone happy,

 

[Hotwer]

@Hotwer: what Naze and Ralle said. They can be very easily spotted.

If we try to block them, then those behind them will try to outsmart us.

I'm not saying that they can't outsmart us, but we can easily prevent then from doing unhuman things (like creating a thread with a spam time of less then a second from one another).

 

[pyf]

Nice idea. It also make us have a good laugh too.
If the spambots come again, do show your magic. It makes everyone happy,

Thanks. Glad you like it.

I personally use vintage advertisements (preferably ludicrous stuff from long forgotten brands of products), which more or less promote the opposite of what they try to advertise here. Or which turn their very own advertising into a joke of sorts.

I'm not saying that they can't outsmart us, but we can easily prevent then from doing unhuman things (like creating a thread with a spam time of less then a second from one another).

I agree that some basic automatic checks could probably be enabled on our side. But again, they would adapt and might eventually become harder to spot someday.

Afaik they are currently not an issue.

 

[Ralle]

Bots will be able to post as long as users can. No prevention is perfect unless we require people to show up physically .

 

[GhostWolf]

Can you really trust the person in front of you to be human, though?

 

[Mister_Haudrauf]

Can you really trust the person in front of you to be human, though?

Do you want to imply that some of us are Aliens?

 

[General Frank]

I for one am one. An alien.

 

[Mister_Haudrauf]

I for one am one. An alien.

Well what species then? I am interrested.

 

[General Frank]

Krogan.

 

[Ralle]

Can you really trust the person in front of you to be human, though?

For now, yes. Later, maybe not. But I don't think Hive will be the first of my concerns when that time comes.

 

[pyf]

Daily routine work...

*yawn...*

 

[Zombie]

I've seen a website that has an algorythm that somehow automatically directs spambots to an invisible sub-forum. Maybe we could have a similar solution.

 

[TheLordOfChaos201]

simple solution

question air

a bot wouldn't be able to answer obvious trick questions like, 'are you a bot?' , 'are you a person?' , 'have you ever had a birth day?' , 'do you have a navel?'

but other than that what could we do for real?

 

[GhostWolf]

The bot maker can easily add those specific cases to the site.
The next step is to put the question in a picture, but then the bot maker can add OCR capabilities.
The next step is to put the question in a picture, but distort the picture and add noise, so OCR fails, so the OCR algorithm is improved.
The next step is to put the question in a picture, but distort the picture and add so much noise, so that OCR fails, and then also your users fail most of the times, because they can't read gibrish.

Google and similar sites use the last one.

I do like the new way of putting multiple pictures, and asking you to select all of the pictures matching some criteria. This actually tests two very important thing - can you use your brain, and how fast your reaction times are.
Until some bot maker passes the test, and we're on to the next.

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

Well I just banned around 10 of them. Stop reporting pyf's posts on the bots, btw, people

Anyway, thanks everyone for the suggestions. I'm sure Ralle will look into all of 'em.

 

[pyf]

[...] Stop reporting pyf's posts on the bots, btw, people [...]

I am making fun of the stuff they try to sell, in an allusive and non-offensive way. Use your wits, people...

 

[Hotwer]

Is there a problem using reCaptcha?

 

[Ralle]

Is there a problem using reCaptcha?

We.... are...?

 

[terrio]

i noticed the spambots hit ENT forums too, looks like someone wanted that wc3 gaming population didnt had problems with getting stiff peanus

offtopic: i have seen case when spambot broke into site as administrator and changed all legit content to viagra ad's. imagine all models being transformed into viagra and cialis links.

 

[pyf]

offtopic: i have seen case when spambot broke into site as administrator and changed all legit content to viagra ad's. imagine all models being transformed into viagra and cialis links.

@terrio : Uh-oh...

Spoiler: Adults only?

https://www.hiveworkshop.com/resources/demonobelisk.28646/

 

[Ralle]

We have backups of everything so if the site was actually somehow broken into, it is not hard to recover. Anyway. I guess spam bots are targeting XenForo more in recent months.

 

[Ralle]

I'm happy to say that I have added a few extra protections and it seems to be working .