/* Bot Spam and IP Bans */

Discuss general Uzebox topics here: features, wish list. nice to have, etc.
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Jubatian
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Re: /*************************************Bot Spam and IP Bans*/

Post by Jubatian »

Wow... This stuff is some ridiculously awesome hackery, patching up the problem of a missing admin.
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D3thAdd3r
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Re: /**************Bot Spam and IP Bans*/

Post by D3thAdd3r »

Jubatian wrote:Wow... This stuff is some ridiculously awesome hackery, patching up the problem of a missing admin
Absolutely! It's cool to see all the different skills around here, and to repeatedly see different problems overcome by someone in some clever way.

It has been looking great lately, and I have not deleted a thing. A huge thank you to nicksen782, but those are just words. Essentially imagine some task like pushing a boulder up an infinite hill. Only to sleep then wake up, to find the boulder back at the bottom in a pool of fire. Anyway imagining something like that gives an insight to how I feel about this fix! :)
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nicksen782
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Re: /* Bot Spam and IP Bans */

Post by nicksen782 »

I am glad to be helpful!

I have the current version running, doing it's job. I'm re-writing a new version that will focus on being faster and also remotely controllable.
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D3thAdd3r
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Re: /* Bot Spam and IP Bans */

Post by D3thAdd3r »

It looks like the latest wave of spam is not so much medical, but payday loans and dating. It seems all the latest ones are coming from 91.200.12.x and I forget if you said the IP filtering was already working on your tool? I deleted them, but mainly the most in common they had was the word "payday".
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nicksen782
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Re: /* Bot Spam and IP Bans */

Post by nicksen782 »

I had it turned off for 2 hours today. A few got through. It will delete posts from that IP range and a few others also.

I'm working on the newer version which I am hoping will be faster to operate.

I won't be turning it off anymore.
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nicksen782
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Re: /* Bot Spam and IP Bans */

Post by nicksen782 »

The better, faster, higher quality bot is finished. It works with banned IP ranges and thus far detects practically everything since the spammers are within specific ranges.

I'm testing it overnight. It has already been working for a few hours while I've been monitoring it.

I think I'm finally done with it.
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Jubatian
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Re: /* Bot Spam and IP Bans */

Post by Jubatian »

Could you make a modification to it so it logs the user names whose posts were deleted? It doesn't appear in the admin panel (I see the logs: it identifies posts deleted, but not the users who made them), so as it is now, it is not possible to identify the spammer accounts to delete them (bots can't register any more, but some are still around).

Purging everyone with zero posts I think might not be entirely fair, although possibly justifiable. By some looking around I can not really decide who might be a spammer and who is not, for example jmulvey is a true person (one post asking about Uzebox kits), and also is PauCuevas (he had problems building a portable Uzebox). Both names might look similar for us to recent spambot registrations (jmulvey due to the all lowercase, PauCuevas for the similarity with accounts like CurtisTems which was a spammer, the common thing being that for us these nicks don't connect easily with usual names or words), e-mail addresses may neither give spambots away.

Alternatively maybe turn off the antispambot for now, to let those remaining spam users do their thing, allowing us to identify and delete them as they activate themselves.
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nicksen782
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Re: /* Bot Spam and IP Bans */

Post by nicksen782 »

Actually, when Alec returned the spam count went literally to 0. My anti-spam bot actually does record information such as the username used. It is in an SQLite database. You are welcome to it.

The bot hasn't deleted any spam since Alec returned. There just hasn't been any spam.

So, the database should help you to determine any remaining spammer user names.

I'll PM it to you.
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nicksen782
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Re: /* Bot Spam and IP Bans */

Post by nicksen782 »

New phpBB... anti-spam bot doesn't work anymore. Seems the way that the HTML is presented is quite different. Before, in the old version, the active topics would be in tables and I would have to parse through each row and skip the first and the last. Now, it is in a < ul > and each row is an < li > . It didn't take long to modify the bot.

So, the bot works again.

... Not that it has anything to do anymore. I just wanted it to be ready. Oh, and it will provide the deletion reason too now.

I'm very happy that the forums are back and the spammers are gone!

I looked at the member list and I saw a few member names that I know are spammers.

Uze: Could you provide an actual list of all members (PM me of course.) I would like to compare it against my list so that we can remove any remaining spam accounts. Could you easily get a member list through a DB query?
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uze6666
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Re: /* Bot Spam and IP Bans */

Post by uze6666 »

Uze: Could you provide an actual list of all members (PM me of course.) I would like to compare it against my list so that we can remove any remaining spam accounts. Could you easily get a member list through a DB query?
I've sent you a PM a PM with the list. :)
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