Tremulous Forum

General => General Discussion => Topic started by: khalsa on April 13, 2010, 03:59:16 am

Title: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: khalsa on April 13, 2010, 03:59:16 am
Some of you may have noticed already that a handful of your fellow forum-goers have a new badge:

(http://tremulous.net/forum/Themes/default/images/badges/spamkiller.png)

This is given to those users who make good use of the "Report to Moderator" button, as well as those who make a timely attempt to report issues in IRC to the mods/devs.

We appreciate all the help users give is in combating spam, and will be doing a lot more in the future to abate the amount of spam bots that get through. Currently it seems like we are facing another deluge of spambots (this past week has seen about 2000 spambot registrations alone) and your help in fighting this nuisance is essential.


Thanks!
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: your face on April 13, 2010, 04:05:58 am
Awesome.  I know who to smite now without the annoying trouble of actually having to read their names first. :D
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: lorremarsh on April 13, 2010, 06:34:05 am
Sounds great to me!
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: khalsa on April 13, 2010, 08:11:12 am
I just deleted over half the members of this forum, all of whom where spambots.

I'm sure there are some left, if you spot them - Let us know!

Also, I installed a mod where you need at least 10 posts to put a link in your sig. If you see anyone with a signature that says *link removed* , it's likely a spambot - please flag it!

Khalsa
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Thorn on April 13, 2010, 10:49:18 am
There's a report to moderator button?
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: David on April 13, 2010, 12:08:31 pm
bottom right of your post, in the default theme.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: amz181 on April 13, 2010, 12:27:14 pm
bottom right of your post, in the default theme.

You have too many badges.

Give me one.

Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Ytram on April 13, 2010, 12:32:12 pm
in the default theme.

No wonder I forgot about that button; I use the theme that used to be the default theme.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Thorn on April 13, 2010, 12:48:55 pm
Oh so certain functions of the forum are disabled for people who have a different colour preference. You'd think the trem theme would be pretty standard wouldn't you?


Nice.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: UniqPhoeniX on April 13, 2010, 01:26:21 pm
Ooh, shiny!
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: janev on April 13, 2010, 01:51:02 pm
How about an "oldfag" badge for people who have been hanging around for too long?
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: KillerWhale on April 13, 2010, 02:09:35 pm
I'd like a "report user" button for spambots, but there's too damn many. The entire first three pages of the members list is full of spambots, excluding tier and Jordy(numbershere).
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: khalsa on April 13, 2010, 02:31:27 pm
Oh so certain functions of the forum are disabled for people who have a different colour preference. You'd think the trem theme would be pretty standard wouldn't you?


Nice.

This is precisely why that theme is not default.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: UniqPhoeniX on April 13, 2010, 02:35:36 pm
I just deleted over half the members of this forum, all of whom where spambots.
Hmm... I think Khalsa forgot to give someone the Spam Killer badge.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Who on April 13, 2010, 04:12:20 pm
How about an "oldfag" badge for people who have been hanging around for too long?

(http://vilkacis.net/junk/oldfart.png)
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: F50 on April 13, 2010, 07:30:32 pm
Unfortunately even with the forum default theme, I cannot report a user's profile to a moderator. The first thing that I thought to do when I saw this thread was was to look through some usernames. Buisnessloan101 for example seemed suspicious and now has *link removed* in his signature (some of the other buisness* names also seem suspicious, but have nothing incriminating in their sigs).
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: A Spork on April 13, 2010, 08:04:55 pm
I see it right under the username in posts, and AFAIK I'm using the default theme
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Plague Bringer on April 13, 2010, 08:24:55 pm
I see it right under the username in posts, and AFAIK I'm using the default theme
I switched to the default earlier so I could see the report post button, but there is no report profile button anywhere.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: UniqPhoeniX on April 13, 2010, 09:11:08 pm
Where's the member list anyway? Closest I can get is Who's Online (http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?action=who) (wtf there are a lot of guests!). And yes, report profile would be nice.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: David on April 13, 2010, 09:23:47 pm
http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?action=mlist
It's in the top menu on the default theme.  (And when I say default I mean SMF default, not board default).

And AFAIK smf doesn't support reporting profiles.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: UniqPhoeniX on April 13, 2010, 09:35:19 pm
LMFAO 3.5 pages/~175 accounts registered in 1 day. We need some more captchas. Or something.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: David on April 13, 2010, 09:39:08 pm
AFAIK they have humans doing captchas now.  So technically the captchas are working...

IMO an automated thing to nuke all accounts older than a week that never logged in a second time would help.

Or just ban China/India/wherever. :p
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: DevilishFreak on April 14, 2010, 02:41:32 am
LMFAO 3.5 pages/~175 accounts registered in 1 day. We need some more captchas. Or something.

If you sort the user list by registered date and look at the websites, they're all spammers.... I mean, usernames like "accts1234abcd" or "vinylss1234bcd"
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Demolution on April 14, 2010, 03:11:33 am
Or just ban China/India/wherever. :p
Yes, Timbo could certainly do it.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: KillerWhale on April 14, 2010, 05:21:29 am
Idea: Force you to "solve for x" as a CAPTCHA.

I could only imagine how much longer it would take them to register if they had to solve "13=sqrt((x/(x^2)) P (11))" each time. :)
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Aviator on April 14, 2010, 05:34:21 am
Idea: Force you to "solve for x" as a CAPTCHA.

I could only imagine how much longer it would take them to register if they had to solve "13=sqrt((x/(x^2)) P (11))" each time. :)
Throw in quadratics that have to be solved to solve more quadratics :]
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: UniqPhoeniX on April 14, 2010, 01:57:08 pm
I'm new, but shoot - sign me up as a spam hunter!  :police:
Ooh the irony!
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: GLAMEOW on April 14, 2010, 03:41:38 pm
hey it works!

someone got rid of my spam

congrats
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: IabzO.o on April 14, 2010, 07:15:42 pm
I want a badge for my killer spam!
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: CreatureofHell on April 14, 2010, 10:21:59 pm
I want a badge for my killer spam!

+1  :D
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: BigBird on April 15, 2010, 01:17:23 am
I'm not a spammer, i'm a posting MEMBER - quit reporting me!  ugh
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: UniqPhoeniX on April 15, 2010, 01:28:16 am
Your "Website" says otherwise.
EDIT: Nice, 2 necros in 1 day.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Rocinante on April 15, 2010, 02:35:32 am
One man's SEO is another man's SPAM.

Stop necroing and posting 'me too's and people might think you have something more to contribute than Pagerank.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Liskey on April 20, 2010, 12:46:42 am
Holy crap - 9000 users total and pages of new registrations in 1 day, including someone advertising cheesecakes online at this very moment.  Reporting by hand would be completely useless against this flood.  The moderators should have a "delete account" button on the user list, so that they could look at the website address and 1 click delete if it looks like advertising.  Adding a column for last active date would also help - it would be much easier than running a python script to fetch each user's profile individually just to extract it from the html.

You seem to have cleaned up to about April 7 (page 42 sorted by registration date descending) but you missed 14750 and 14764 (dating tips website).

For the math captcha, have people solve for a, b and c such that a^3 + b^3 = c^3.  That'll get rid of the damn bots.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Conzul on April 20, 2010, 01:04:14 am
Being computer programs, bots will be better at math than some of the people I've seen around here....better think of some other ways...
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: F50 on April 20, 2010, 01:28:24 am
What about a hidden (have it display below an image or something) textbox with id=name? Is that already done?

If things get really bad, what about asking a trivial question? Perhaps "What is the name of the game these forums are about?" or "What is the name of the development team" or "Name an alien starting class" or "What's cute and green and lives in a hovel?" (deprecated).
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: khalsa on April 20, 2010, 01:49:42 am
I have removed the "Are you a bot" question on registration and replaced it with some randomized puzzles.

Edit: http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?action=globalAnnouncements;id=5
May 1st all users with 0 posts get deleted!
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Conzul on April 20, 2010, 03:10:21 am
"What's cute and green and lives in a hovel?" (deprecated).

You can take the Granger out of the Hovel, but you can't take the Hovel out of the Granger :P
RIP
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: UniqPhoeniX on April 20, 2010, 04:30:44 am
"What is the name of the development team" or "Name an alien starting class" or "What's cute and green and lives in a hovel?" (deprecated).
+1, except what if someone wants to register to ask for help with install?
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Conzul on April 20, 2010, 04:37:17 am
"What is the name of the development team" or "Name an alien starting class" or "What's cute and green and lives in a hovel?" (deprecated).
+1, except what if someone wants to register to ask for help with install?

Moderated guest postings?
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: F50 on April 20, 2010, 06:13:54 am
"What is the name of the development team" or "Name an alien starting class" or "What's cute and green and lives in a hovel?" (deprecated).
+1, except what if someone wants to register to ask for help with install?
Well you *could* just put up a link to the manual (even the hovel question can be answered like that), but that wouldn't be particularly newbie-friendly. Giving suggested search terms such as development or class or hovel would help (try searching for the answers with those search terms, they are not hard to find). It would still stump bots, but that would make it rather easy for human spammers as well.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: khalsa on April 20, 2010, 06:24:32 am
I am currently taking further steps to stop spammers. Including using several Honeypot DB's in the registration check.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: jit on April 20, 2010, 07:02:28 am
this just made me wanna go get some spam loool.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Liskey on April 21, 2010, 12:04:35 am
Being computer programs, bots will be better at math than some of the people I've seen around here....better think of some other ways...
Well, I can guarantee that no bots will get around that captcha.  There is a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: David on April 21, 2010, 12:15:00 am
/me give Liskey a cookie.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: gimhael on April 21, 2010, 06:40:20 am
Being computer programs, bots will be better at math than some of the people I've seen around here....better think of some other ways...
Well, I can guarantee that no bots will get around that captcha.  There is a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
But you forgot the "a,b and c have to be positive integers" part  :(
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: DevilishFreak on April 21, 2010, 04:25:49 pm
We need improved captchas
(http://www.tremulous.net.ar/files/drupalbb/5/funnycaptcha01.jpg)
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: your face on April 21, 2010, 05:24:55 pm
:D
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: F50 on April 21, 2010, 09:52:53 pm
I really hate calculus
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Conzul on April 21, 2010, 10:37:04 pm
We need improved captchas
(http://www.tremulous.net.ar/files/drupalbb/5/funnycaptcha01.jpg)

You know, this would have the added benefit of keeping out anyone under 14.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Colynn' on April 21, 2010, 11:39:28 pm
We need improved captchas
(http://www.tremulous.net.ar/files/drupalbb/5/funnycaptcha01.jpg)

You know, this would have the added benefit of keeping out anyone under 14.
I'm sure that a lot of people (including me) over 14 couldn't answer this.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Conzul on April 21, 2010, 11:43:45 pm
We need improved captchas
(http://www.tremulous.net.ar/files/drupalbb/5/funnycaptcha01.jpg)

You know, this would have the added benefit of keeping out anyone under 14.
I'm sure that a lot of people (including me) over 14 couldn't answer this.

Oh you could answer it, just not correctly.
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Paradox on April 21, 2010, 11:44:31 pm
Thats ln(2)

Doesn't everyone know that?
Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Liskey on April 22, 2010, 12:04:52 am
If that little blob between arctan(x) and sin(1/x) is a *, the sandwich theorem says you're right.

If it's a -, then the limit doesn't exist.  I can't tell.

Are we off topic yet?

Title: Re: New Badge: Spam Killer
Post by: Demolution on April 22, 2010, 04:43:28 am
If that little blob between arctan(x) and sin(1/x) is a *, the sandwich theorem says you're right.

If it's a -, then the limit doesn't exist.  I can't tell.

Are we off topic yet?

It's a multiplication symbol.
Also: I have a professor who took calculus while in her grade school. Apparently there are kids out there who like to torture themselves.