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Yes, we have had text recognition security for some time. It isn't enough when there is an army of wage slaves typing away in sweatshops in Croatia or wherever, posting spam by the gigabyte hourly. We need another layer of security, and I will get right on that.

Right on it.

steve wrote:Yes, we have had text recognition security for some time. It isn't enough when there is an army of wage slaves typing away in sweatshops in Croatia or wherever, posting spam by the gigabyte hourly. We need another layer of security, and I will get right on that.

Right on it.

I believe in you, Steve! Don't let your fedora go to waste!

steve wrote:I spend about 90 minutes a day doing this, and it sucks.

I'm going to try an additional layer of posting nuisance for first-time posters, in the hope that it slows down the bots.

One problem is that viruses infect individual computers, and real account IP addresses are used by trojan horses to spam us. If I ban those IP addresses, the legitimate users can't post.

At the risk of sounding like an idiot (ok, I am one, I don't know shit about computers, at work, I pretty much use my computer as a typewriter), how can your computer contract a virus of any type just by your looking at a thread on a forum like this? Wouldn't you have to download something or run some application for the virus to be transmitted?

Mazec wrote:At the risk of sounding like an idiot (ok, I am one, I don't know shit about computers, at work, I pretty much use my computer as a typewriter), how can your computer contract a virus of any type just by your looking at a thread on a forum like this? Wouldn't you have to download something or run some application for the virus to be transmitted?

You don't get the virus from the messageboard, you get it from some open internet connection. the virus can use your computer to make spam posts or it can mimic your (legitimate) IP adress in a counterfeit packet.

steve wrote:Right-winger spambot trying to stir-up the rabble before the election.

insane.


i started to browse through memberlist and noticed that, out of 5366 registered members 2407 are yet to make their first post, and next 600 are in large part one post spambots.
then i said "spambots, disapear" three times while touching the screen with my hands, i'm sure it will help.


edit: and what is up with spambots asking for advice in the subject of spamming message boards or sharing some general information on how this works? is this a way the spambots masters show us they have a sense of humor?

steve wrote:Yes, we have had text recognition security for some time. It isn't enough when there is an army of wage slaves typing away in sweatshops in Croatia or wherever, posting spam by the gigabyte hourly. We need another layer of security, and I will get right on that.

Right on it.

Ah, I see.

I frequent another phbb message board that is run by a dude that specializes in computer security for a living, and I have never seen any spambot-type crap on that board. If the problems don't cease with the measures you're taking right now, I can ask him for some pointers and send them your way.

Look up CAPTCHA (registration images) on wikipedia - there's some interesting stuff about how spammers have bypassed this method.

Mazec wrote:At the risk of sounding like an idiot (ok, I am one, I don't know shit about computers, at work, I pretty much use my computer as a typewriter), how can your computer contract a virus of any type just by your looking at a thread on a forum like this? Wouldn't you have to download something or run some application for the virus to be transmitted?

It's not always that simple. One of the best examples is the .wmf virus. If you have temporary internet files enabled for your browser (which 99% of people do) you can view a picture that actually has a virus attached and it gets added to your temporary files on your hard disk. You then have a virus.

andyman wrote: If you have temporary internet files enabled for your browser (which 99% of people do) you can view a picture that actually has a virus attached and it gets added to your temporary files on your hard disk. You then have a virus.

Steganography. You can embed a virus in nearly anything.

I think I mentioned this before, but why not disallow inclusion of HTML in a user's posts until he passes the fifty mark or something? That would frustrate the Phenterminers. I don't know how to write scripts, but I bet there may already be a bulletin board patch that would do that.

steve wrote:I spend about 90 minutes a day doing this, and it sucks.

Wow. Thanks much for doing this for us. That's gotta be some boring, tedius crap & no doubt, thankless.

Thank you Steve, for taking any amount of time out from doing something you'd rather be doing to do this shit.

Hey, some of us are just introverted.