Author Topic: More Suspect Members  (Read 43890 times)

Offline Chiroptera

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #75 on: April 12, 2011, 03:37:09 AM »
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Offline Fyrchick

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Offline Enjorous

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #77 on: April 16, 2011, 06:53:17 PM »
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Offline TechnoLurker™

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #78 on: May 06, 2011, 05:10:21 PM »
Pretty much anybody with a bb style forum gets oodles of these guys. The clutter they cause tends to bog down the mysql database back end, causing the site to be slow, unresponsive an occasionally crash...like these forums are prone to do (as well as many others). Most of them are bots.

Two levels of enforcement that tend to work are:
1) Increasing the obfuscation on the secret word for account creation to maximum. (For some reason the good bots can still manipulate the first two levels of obfuscation.)
2) Enforcing hand-approved account creation. (This one is a pain for a large site, as the approvals required can quickly out-pace and administrator.)
A way it's handled on some sites is restricting new members to certain portions of a board until their posts can be approved or disapproved.  That way you see which ones are definitely junk.  Again, this method works pretty well with either a smaller volume of traffic or a lot of people to police it.  There's a couple of spambot restricting mods out there.  Don't know how well they work, though. 

Offline black_hawk_sam

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #79 on: May 10, 2011, 05:50:27 PM »
I changed my member form to require a 123 entered, and that stopped the bots. if I see a lot of attempted posts to my forum, I'm going to just alter the names of the forms used in membering and submitting. They can then just eat 404 .

wow. lol. but speaking of error 404, I can't find something.
I have been looking nonstop for over 40 minutes (I was bored, it's fourth period...)
I can't find a hierarchy of titles given to profiles... Is there one?

Offline Priscellie

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #80 on: May 10, 2011, 08:03:08 PM »
wow. lol. but speaking of error 404, I can't find something.
I have been looking nonstop for over 40 minutes (I was bored, it's fourth period...)
I can't find a hierarchy of titles given to profiles... Is there one?

1 star, Mortal - Member with <10 posts
1 star, Apprentice - Member with <100 posts
2 stars, Wizard - Member with 100+ posts
3 stars, Posty McPosterpants - Member with +1,000 posts
3 stars, Seriously? - Member with +10,000 posts
3 stars, Needs a Life - Member with +20,000 posts
4 stars (Yellow) - Bartender
4 stars (Green) - Local Moderator
4 stars (Red) - Person about to be invaded by the Canim
5 stars, White Council - Global Moderator (Mickey, Ashton, and Blaze), plus Jim
6 stars - Administrator (Me = Gatekeeper)
7 stars - Owner (Fred = The Merlin)

Offline black_hawk_sam

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #81 on: May 10, 2011, 08:06:12 PM »
1 star, Mortal - Member with <10 posts
1 star, Apprentice - Member with <100 posts
2 stars, Wizard - Member with 100+ posts
3 stars, Posty McPosterpants - Member with +1,000 posts
3 stars, Seriously? - Member with +10,000 posts
3 stars, Needs a Life - Member with +20,000 posts
4 stars (Yellow) - Bartender
4 stars (Green) - Local Moderator
4 stars (Red) - Person about to be invaded by the Canim
5 stars, White Council - Global Moderator (Mickey, Ashton, and Blaze), plus Jim
6 stars - Administrator (Me = Gatekeeper)
7 stars - Owner (Fred = The Merlin)

Then what is the whole "conversationalist" and "participant" and "lurker" all about?

Offline Myyrdn Eopia

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #82 on: May 11, 2011, 02:04:58 AM »
Mortal  = Lurker
Apprentice = Participant
Wizard = Conversationalist

Offline black_hawk_sam

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #83 on: May 11, 2011, 08:33:31 PM »
okay, thanks for the help! I know it was a little off topic... but thanks for clearing it up anyways!

Offline Orbweaver

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #84 on: May 14, 2011, 03:32:30 PM »
A few of my own botfinds:

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=27677 "Clearance Furniture Sale" and "Check Out My Grandparents' Profile"

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29436 'Coral Springs Family Law'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29340 'Invoice Factoring'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=28614 About four separate ads.

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29458 'Coral Springs Divorce Attorney'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=27832 'Network Marketing Opportunities'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29029 'bathroom remodeling Eden Prairie'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29797 'limestone tiles'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=22128 'No Cost Refi'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29275 'Flower Delivery'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=28765 'Veterinary Technician Schools'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=12994 'Adult Games'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=12655 'video porno de jenny rivera'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=28074 'Rolex Air King Watches'

Gee, this one looks familiar: http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29441 'Coral Springs Divorce Lawyer'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=28394 'Facebook of Sex' 'Adult Facebook'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=26404 'Virtual Secretary Services'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=25883 'Ambit Energy'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=6960 Email is apparently for a magazine.

The baby's awake, I'll get to the rest of the A's later. :)
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Offline black_hawk_sam

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #85 on: May 16, 2011, 10:33:11 AM »
what does it mean to be a bot on a forum site?

Offline Paynesgrey

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #86 on: May 16, 2011, 11:42:52 AM »
A bot's a program that scans the net for forums with the same basic registration procedure, fills in the blanks, automatically responds to the verification email... and then has a spam link to a larger, healthier you-know-what as a signature line, or a marketting link as it's homepage in it's profile.  Sophisticated ones can also do some random, basic posts.  You know those emails you get from Candy, where she says she just moved into the area and was looking at your profile and you sound cool, come to my website and we'll chat?  Those are the products of a similar type of bot.

Sometimes an actual human user will set up the account, make a couple normal posts, then set the bot to make periodic posts containing spam links.  The profile will again have their homepage as being a link to acacia berries or low interest rates, etc.  Once it's set up, the human then moves on and just leaves the dummy account with it's advert links just sititng there, hoping people will browse it and click the bot's homepage and thus go to the pay-per-click sites the bot was set up to lead people to.  Really dedicated bot setters will actually make a half dozen posts to give the impression the bot is a real human who usually just lurks.

Offline Priscellie

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #87 on: May 16, 2011, 02:03:27 PM »
A few of my own botfinds:

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=27677 "Clearance Furniture Sale" and "Check Out My Grandparents' Profile"

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29436 'Coral Springs Family Law'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29340 'Invoice Factoring'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=28614 About four separate ads.

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29458 'Coral Springs Divorce Attorney'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=27832 'Network Marketing Opportunities'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29029 'bathroom remodeling Eden Prairie'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29797 'limestone tiles'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=22128 'No Cost Refi'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29275 'Flower Delivery'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=28765 'Veterinary Technician Schools'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=12994 'Adult Games'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=12655 'video porno de jenny rivera'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=28074 'Rolex Air King Watches'

Gee, this one looks familiar: http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=29441 'Coral Springs Divorce Lawyer'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=28394 'Facebook of Sex' 'Adult Facebook'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=26404 'Virtual Secretary Services'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=25883 'Ambit Energy'

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?action=profile;u=6960 Email is apparently for a magazine.

The baby's awake, I'll get to the rest of the A's later. :)

Got all these, plus all the spam accounts registered under similar IPs.

Offline Priscellie

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #88 on: May 16, 2011, 02:13:44 PM »
Also purged all accounts created over 150 days ago that had never been activated.  We went from 4104 outstanding accounts to 707!  Hopefully, the server will appreciate the marginally lightened load. :D

Offline Howl

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Re: More Suspect Members
« Reply #89 on: May 23, 2011, 07:10:32 AM »
Also purged all accounts created over 150 days ago that had never been activated.  We went from 4104 outstanding accounts to 707!  Hopefully, the server will appreciate the marginally lightened load. :D

Woohoo! Well done, you really slaughtered them ;D ;D
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