Forum spam

Prince of Persia related subjects that do not have their own boards.
Falcury
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Re: Forum spam

Post by Falcury »

I did catch and delete a few spam accounts in the past months. But it has definitely become a lot less than it used to be! I suppose the wave of 'PC Games' spammers has finally stopped?

On a related note, it looks like the Stop Forum Spam extension has blocked 6 user registrations since it was installed. (Although of course we don't know 100% sure that those were 'true positives'.)
David wrote: March 30th, 2018, 11:48 am We also have some new users who have spam on their profile: here, here.
OK, I deleted their signatures and forced reactivation.
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doppelganger
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Re: Forum spam

Post by doppelganger »

One over here.
Doppelgänger
Hmm.. These mortals know about me.. :evil:

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Falcury
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Re: Forum spam

Post by Falcury »

doppelganger wrote: April 5th, 2018, 2:28 pm One over here.
Alright, deleted.
Falcury
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Re: Forum spam

Post by Falcury »

Today a newly registered account was used to send spam messages to more than 300 users, using the forum's private message system. The message title was designed to look like it was an "important message from the forum administration".

I don't think we've seen this kind of spamming before. This is quite a serious concern, considering the scale of the attack, and also considering that spam private messages can be much more intrusive than regular spam posts, because people tend to get e-mail notifications about these.

I have temporarily halted new member registrations for now, to prevent further attacks. All of the spam messages have been deleted.
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Norbert
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Re: Forum spam

Post by Norbert »

Thanks for intervening.

If phpBB has no workable alternatives, we might have to go back to this:
Norbert wrote: November 8th, 2017, 12:03 pmOne solution I've used is to make the verification question a text that says they need to email and explain why they want to join.
And then if the explanation is sufficient, give them the impossible-to-guess response they can use to register.
That way the registration processes might be too much of a hassle for most of the spammers.
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Shauing
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Re: Forum spam

Post by Shauing »

My account has a stuck ''Private Message'' notification. I imagine it was from the spam user, but as the message was deleted by Falcury, it doesn't check that I have read all private messages.
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Re: Forum spam

Post by 4DPlayer »

Shauing wrote: May 26th, 2019, 12:29 am My account has a stuck ''Private Message'' notification. I imagine it was from the spam user, but as the message was deleted by Falcury, it doesn't check that I have read all private messages.
I got one of those messages too.
Falcury
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Re: Forum spam

Post by Falcury »

Shauing wrote: May 26th, 2019, 12:29 am My account has a stuck ''Private Message'' notification. I imagine it was from the spam user, but as the message was deleted by Falcury, it doesn't check that I have read all private messages.
I think I know what caused this... I couldn't find a way to properly delete the private messages from the admin control panel interface, so I manually deleted the messages from the database. I am guessing that phpBB does not know how to clean up the notifications in this case. Can you post a screenshot, so that I know what to look for?
David
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Re: Forum spam

Post by David »

I (as a moderator) have two stuck "Private Message reported" notifications.
They show that the PMs started with "Important message from the forum administration!", so I guess the reported PMs are part of this spam attack.

They are in the "Notifications" at the top right, and on the page that opens from "See All".
If I click either, the opening page says "You must select at least one report to perform this action."
But at least this marked them as read, so maybe it's not so important to remove them.
Falcury
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Re: Forum spam

Post by Falcury »

OK, I deleted the notifications relating to the spam message from the database. Hopefully they are gone now for everyone.
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Shauing
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Re: Forum spam

Post by Shauing »

Falcury wrote: May 26th, 2019, 2:36 pm OK, I deleted the notifications relating to the spam message from the database. Hopefully they are gone now for everyone.
Yeah, that did it. Thank you, Falcury and David!
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Norbert
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Re: Forum spam

Post by Norbert »

Someone contacted me via popot.org, and I suggested they post on this forum.
I told them they can request an account via:
memberlist.php?mode=contactadmin
Hopefully that works.
Falcury
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Re: Forum spam

Post by Falcury »

Norbert wrote: June 1st, 2019, 12:04 am Someone contacted me via popot.org, and I suggested they post on this forum.
I told them they can request an account via:
memberlist.php?mode=contactadmin
Hopefully that works.
I think that form sends messages to Enrique's e-mail address (@princed.org). I don't think I can receive them.
Maybe I should ask Enrique about this.
Falcury
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Re: Forum spam

Post by Falcury »

Norbert wrote: November 8th, 2017, 12:03 pm One solution I've used is to make the verification question a text that says they need to email and explain why they want to join.
And then if the explanation is sufficient, give them the impossible-to-guess response they can use to register.
That way the registration processes might be too much of a hassle for most of the spammers.
I have been using this method for a few months now. It seems to work well enough.
The obvious downside is that legitimate new members also need to go through the hassle of e-mailing me.
Maybe at some point in the future we can go back to automated methods.
David
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Re: Forum spam

Post by David »

Whoops, I somehow accidentally reported this post to Stop Forum Spam by pressing enter! :oops:
I opened the report and clicked "Delete report".
I hope this won't cause any problems!
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