Cheating the Spammers

[Tony Parsons]

On 2/6/2023 at 2:07 PM, TGOPS said:

Members would be surprised at the number of things forum (and other net platform) software does in the background.  These are called 'cron jobs' and they are automated routines that do things at different times.  Many of them are called "batch" processes, such as sending any email notices, refreshing the system cache, cleaning out temporary files, etcetera.  The refresh on the cache is set to a default of every 5 minutes.

Depending on how close one is to when that cron job runs will determine how fast the rubbish disappears from the pages.  Clearing the browser cache will not hurry the process, but sometimes that can help with other things!  The spammy spam is actually hidden immediately. 

Thank you to any who is participating in this crowdsourced community policing.  Nearly 50 were cleared out in a hot minute and sent to the digital dumpster.

One does one's humble best, and I'm sure we all understand and appreciate what Sandy has been going through on a daily basis. Kudos to him, and all the other anti-spammers.

[Tony Parsons]

Just now, Dustin McAmera said:

I'm going to phone the number and ask them politely to stop.

Make sure it isn't one of those that charges highly for the privilege of phoning them.

[Sandy Vongries]

Can't do it in my sleep, and the system doesn't catch all of it.  Cleaned up for now.

[AlanKlein]

I opened on of those posts and noticed the poster had 50 or 60 posts.  How did they do that? It will bypass the "new" posted blocking procedure/ No?

Edited February 7, 2023 by AlanKlein

[Tony Parsons]

2 hours ago, Normanski said:

I reported MikeChap earlier today (I’m GMT +7), so as Dustin says that should’ve been enough for the system. But if MikeChap’s posts are still visible then members will continue to report them which is not what we want. Can the fact that a user has been reported not be shown in real time (like the view of other members’ also viewing the thread)?

When I lost track of what I was doing (which happens with monotonous frequency !), and tried to report a post twice, i was gently but firmly informed I had already done that ! Can this facility not be extended to inform others that a report has already been made ?

[The Ghost Of Phils Society]

OK, let's get to the meat of the thing.  The spam is coming from a 'human' process along with automated tools workers have to expedite the process.

When a site is targeted, the software creates a member profile complete with a viable Gmail or other account.  If any challenges are presented, the human solves them.  Then the system responds to our registration confirmation email.  Then they proceed to post rubbish.

The new automatic moderation filter will catch those who do it immediately--if members report what they see.  WE HAVE NO MECHANISM AVAILABLE TO US that will automatically filter spam.  Nor do we have the ability TO ADD A SINGLE PLUGIN to this board.  Nor does the corporate ownership have any plans on spending anything to acquire plugins.

So we must crowdsource, and make other filters.  Some might work, others not so much.

Polishing brass on the Titanic is so much fun.  Bosun, count the number of lifeboats, please.

[John Farrell]

Is it possible to turn off the ability for new accounts to be made for a time period? The vulnerable time appears to be from around 0500 GMT for 6 or 7 hours.

Edited February 7, 2023 by John Farrell

[Tony Parsons]

2 hours ago, TGOPS said:

OK, let's get to the meat of the thing.  The spam is coming from a 'human' process along with automated tools workers have to expedite the process.

When a site is targeted, the software creates a member profile complete with a viable Gmail or other account.  If any challenges are presented, the human solves them.  Then the system responds to our registration confirmation email.  Then they proceed to post rubbish.

The new automatic moderation filter will catch those who do it immediately--if members report what they see.  WE HAVE NO MECHANISM AVAILABLE TO US that will automatically filter spam.  Nor do we have the ability TO ADD A SINGLE PLUGIN to this board.  Nor does the corporate ownership have any plans on spending anything to acquire plugins.

So we must crowdsource, and make other filters.  Some might work, others not so much.

Polishing brass on the Titanic is so much fun.  Bosun, count the number of lifeboats, please.

I am sure that no-one who has responded about this particular issue has any intention of criticising the work of the moderators in attempting to eradicate it. To me, it seems that members are attempting to suggest ways in which it can be addressed, perhaps with little or no knowledge of what the system is capable of doing, either with the current software or any additional plugins. I have no issues with reporting any spam that I find (did over 50 reports earlier) - others may feel differently. If filters can be provided, this will I am sure be appreciated - as things stand, we must work with what we have.

[Dustin McAmera]

(Forget I spoke!)

 

Edited February 8, 2023 by Dustin McAmera

[Dustin McAmera]

Reporting the scammers and spammers worked this morning, but the spammers stay logged in and are able to post again, it seems, while the system gets round to hiding them. So they are able to build up their posts until they don't get hidden. You could maybe increase the threshold number of posts (to something like 25 or 50!)?

There's another form of that phone-number spam, being done on profile pages (in fact, there's a lot of spam profile-pages, because there's no Report button on a profile page). An example is user bellsouth1002.

Also, I see people logged in who have been banned as spammers days ago. Why does banning them not stop them logging in? When we had this problem at Camera-wiki, we had a ban that blocked their username from logging in, and also stopped any login or account creation at their IP address. That wasn't as much help as it should be - I understand people can conceal their real IP address.

We became concerned at the buildup of banned usernames. We had a made-up user called Spammer, and there was a procedure for merging the real spammer into that user, then the real spammer's username was deleted. Merging first meant the spammer's IP address was retained in the banned list, and meant the wiki could keep a complete history of the changes to articles (with spam actions listed as by the user 'Spammer').

 

[Tony Parsons]

Probably not feasible, just a thought - how about making a greeting or introductory post mandatory, with no other posting until 24 hours have elapsed since that post?

[William Michael]

6 minutes ago, Dustin McAmera said:

There's another form of that phone-number spam, being done on profile pages (in fact, there's a lot of spam profile-pages, because there's no Report button on a profile page). An example is user bellsouth1002.

Yes, agree - Whilst a report button would assist: I think most of that spam is caught, within 12~24 hours: it just takes a little more ferreting.

WW

[Dustin McAmera]

15 minutes ago, Normanski said:

It’s a helluva job being a spammer, ain’t it?

Are you a depressed spammer?  😒  Phone this number for moral support and advice: +99 123 456789. Please have your bank details handy..💷💶💵

[Tony Parsons]

Oh, for the chance to throw a spammer in the works . . .

[mikemorrellNL]

22 hours ago, TGOPS said:

OK, let's get to the meat of the thing.  The spam is coming from a 'human' process along with automated tools workers have to expedite the process.

When a site is targeted, the software creates a member profile complete with a viable Gmail or other account.  If any challenges are presented, the human solves them.  Then the system responds to our registration confirmation email.  Then they proceed to post rubbish.

The new automatic moderation filter will catch those who do it immediately--if members report what they see.  WE HAVE NO MECHANISM AVAILABLE TO US that will automatically filter spam.  Nor do we have the ability TO ADD A SINGLE PLUGIN to this board.  Nor does the corporate ownership have any plans on spending anything to acquire plugins.

So we must crowdsource, and make other filters.  Some might work, others not so much.

Polishing brass on the Titanic is so much fun.  Bosun, count the number of lifeboats, please.

 

I really do value and appreciate all you guys and the mods are doing to prevent and clean up Spam! But my feeling is that there is perhaps more that could be done in terms of 'Honeypots', the complexity of Q&A challenges and 'crowdsourcing' effective 'antispam' plugins (Cleantalk: $12  a year?, Hell, I'd gladly pay this subscription fee for PN myself!)

[samstevens]

35 minutes ago, mikemorrellNL said:

But my feeling is that there is perhaps more that could be done in terms of 'Honeypots', the complexity of Q&A challenges and 'crowdsourcing' effective 'antispam' plugins (Cleantalk: $12  a year?, Hell, I'd gladly pay this subscription fee for PN myself!)

23 hours ago, TGOPS said:

WE HAVE NO MECHANISM AVAILABLE TO US that will automatically filter spam.  Nor do we have the ability TO ADD A SINGLE PLUGIN to this board.  Nor does the corporate ownership have any plans on spending anything to acquire plugins.

 

[Tony Parsons]

When submitting anti-Spam reports, there are four options, the fourth of which is 'NSFW'. This is an acronym with which I am not familiar - please can someone translate ? Cheers

[Dustin McAmera]

6 minutes ago, Tony Parsons said:

'NSFW'.

Not Safe For Work, I believe: it means boobs (etc!) 🙀

That is, not fit to be viewed on your work computer. Wherever I have worked, the issue would be less that you were looking at boobs than that it wasn't work.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Dustin McAmera

[Tony Parsons]

4 minutes ago, Dustin McAmera said:

Not Safe For Work, I believe: it means boobs (etc!) 🙀

Depends what work you do, I suppose ! 😃

 

Thanks for the clarification.

[Niels - NHSN]

This morning (EU time) I had to go through several pages of spam to reach real posts.

One spammer had posted 70 posts in less than one hour from signing up as new member!

I report 10-20 posts before I get tired, because it feels I am doing it in vain.

Is there really no standard function that can be enabled to enforce all new members postings to be approved by a moderator before they are visible?

I feel the fact that the spam posts actually shows up is actually encouraging them to continue.

If it is too much of a burden on the current group of moderators to pre-moderate new users, I don't mind doing a little pre-approval/delete moderation when I log in (in the morning EU time). Let me know @TGOPS if relevant.

 

[Sandy Vongries]

49 minutes ago, Normanski said:

I think you only have to report each unique user, a slightly better scenario but still not perfect. 

Reporting just one thread from a spammer's string is all that is needed, and is appreciated!

[William Michael]

6 hours ago, NHSN said:

One spammer had posted 70 posts in less than one hour from signing up as new member!

I report 10-20 posts before I get tired, because it feels I am doing it in vain.

Is there really no standard function that can be enabled to enforce all new members postings to be approved by a moderator before they are visible?

I feel the fact that the spam posts actually shows up is actually encouraging them to continue.

As Sandy mentioned reporting a Spammer (new Member) ONCE, is sufficient - and is certainly both appreciated and very effective.

The fact that last night (EU time) you saw many posts from one spammer is a function of several separate components: for example, in relation to the deleting of al those items and banning of the members - you would not have seen any of that spam if you logged on an hour or so later. What I mean is last night, 90% of the spam, and spammers happened within two, two hour windows and 90% of each batch of that spam and those spammer was gone and banned within 2 hours of the spammer joining Photo.net.   

The Spam Posts showing on the forums do not really do much to encourage spamming: most it it is automated.

As mentioned previously (perhaps on another thread), the encouragement to spam is a meager payment to the third party spammer by the primary entity.  It is the same basic principle as the spam/scam in your email and directed to you phone via calls and SMS.

WW     

[Sandy Vongries]

My experience, U.S. Mountain time, is that it is sporadic, but occasionally fairly heavy.  There is sometimes a little lag between deletion of the spammer and disappearance of the spam.  I check in frequently in the course of most days.

[Tony Parsons]

Useful to know that reporting just one post is sufficient to get a spammer banned - thanks for the info ! My mouse finger was getting a little tired recently. 😀

[Dustin McAmera]

So they had a training day over the weekend? Or was it St Spammer's day?