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Looks like the spammers are back

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2020 5:56 pm
by WileyCoyote
Does anyone approve the new members or do they get automatically added to the group?

Re: Looks like the spammers are back

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2020 6:06 pm
by garys
The spammers never leave. They just try to find new ways around having to register and be approved. I don't know how registration is handled on this site, but I frequent another site that requires approval from an administrator or moderator, and yet they find ways around that.
In the end, the solution is to simply keep deleting anything they post and banning them as a future user. That doesn't stop them as they just come back under a different user name.
The good part is that they are easy to spot and easy to avoid. Just don't look at anything posted by a spammer.

Re: Looks like the spammers are back

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2020 7:13 am
by dusty
WileyCoyote wrote:Does anyone approve the new members or do they get automatically added to the group?
The answers to your questions are respectively "NO" and then "YES".. You really know that because when you joined this forum there was no waiting time before you could post. As soon as you completed the application you were able to post.

But why is that important. What could anyone do during that "waiting period" to ascertain that this "new member" is not going to be a spammer? Then there is the haunting question - "What is SPAM"? "Who is by definition a SPAMMER?

If you believe these questions are easy to answer, please contact Admin and volunteer to become a Moderator.

Re: Looks like the spammers are back

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2020 10:19 am
by roy_okc
dusty wrote: But why is that important. What could anyone do during that "waiting period" to ascertain that this "new member" is not going to be a spammer? Then there is the haunting question - "What is SPAM"? "Who is by definition a SPAMMER?

If you believe these questions are easy to answer, please contact Admin and volunteer to become a Moderator.
Dusty,

I think that even a modest delay of an hour or few would stop most spammers who want to register, maybe automated, drop their payload, and go on.

As far as what is spam, to borrow from a far past decade, it can be hard to explain but I generally know it when I see it.

Definitely not easy for the admins or moderators (if any here) to spot on registration unless they can see the country the new member's IP address is coming from.

Re: Looks like the spammers are back

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:34 am
by dusty
roy_okc wrote:
dusty wrote: But why is that important. What could anyone do during that "waiting period" to ascertain that this "new member" is not going to be a spammer? Then there is the haunting question - "What is SPAM"? "Who is by definition a SPAMMER?

If you believe these questions are easy to answer, please contact Admin and volunteer to become a Moderator.
Dusty,

I think that even a modest delay of an hour or few would stop most spammers who want to register, maybe automated, drop their payload, and go on.

As far as what is spam, to borrow from a far past decade, it can be hard to explain but I generally know it when I see it.

Definitely not easy for the admins or moderators (if any here) to spot on registration unless they can see the country the new member's IP address is coming from.[/quote]

I understand your point (I think) but I do not believe a delay in itself would deter anything. An actual review by a moderator and a subsequent ban of that poster would.

Knowing the origin of a post may be a strong indication of reason to ban but even that is somewhat questionable. Should all posts from say the Ukraine be banned? Then on the flip side, should all posts from say the continental US be allowed?

My only point is that controlling spammers and their spam is not an easy task. Even concluding that a post is probably spam is hard.

My only suggestion is that if you open a post and find something that you believe should be banned - report it. The forum provides the tools to do that. Use them. Hopefully this will give the moderators a leg up finding and deleting that which is offensive to us.

Re: Looks like the spammers are back

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2020 2:23 pm
by JPG
One 'indicator' that I would consider a red flag is the use of the extended character set that includes those strange characters that prevail in spam from Russia and the Ukraine.

Re: Looks like the spammers are back

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2020 2:38 pm
by jsburger
JPG wrote:One 'indicator' that I would consider a red flag is the use of the extended character set that includes those strange characters that prevail in spam from Russia and the Ukraine.
Cyrillic alphabet

Also posts that contain links to sites that have no bearing to the topic of the post even if the topic is appropriate to the forum.

Re: Похоже, спамеры вернулись

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2020 2:55 pm
by dusty
Из-за того, что на русском написано спам?






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пыльный

Re: Похоже, спамеры вернулись

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2020 4:28 pm
by rogersk
dusty wrote:Из-за того, что на русском написано спам?






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Yes. :D

Re: Похоже, спамеры вернулись

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2020 4:34 pm
by dusty
rogersk wrote:
dusty wrote:Из-за того, что на русском написано спам?






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Yes. :D
Did you mean to say да?