What is going on?

[jhuckabyjr]

Looks like this site has been hijacked.

[amenite]

Hijacked - pretty much yes, it's been going on for some weeks / months now. Need some draconian countermeasures to preserve the site. Otherwise we're doomed to see this forum permanently become the cluster **** it is today.

[chunkyfrog]

Today, they are apparently doing what they had been testing for.
Expect Johnny to do something drastic.
I doubt he will pay their ransom.
I love you all, even my foes.
I will miss you.

[Goofproof]

Today, they are apparently doing what they had been testing for.
Expect Johnny to do something drastic.
I doubt he will pay their ransom.
I love you all, even my foes.
I will miss you.

The way to stop it is to set a time limits between posts from one log-in, one or two minutes. Some forums have this. Probably isn't in this software though. The bot can now post too fast to delete. Jim

[Goofproof]

They have created a bunch of log-in's, and are using them over and over to spam, The bot program loops them and posts very fast. Not Ransomware ware, just a AS_HOLE ! Jim

[Goofproof]

The rate of posting for the bot is over 23 posts per minute. More food tham my dog can eat. Management will have to take care of it on their end, my guess delete all the addresses the posts come from, as they are killed off the attact will die. but first they need to control new member log-in's and guest posting (another door). Jim

[cpoulos]

Need to require log in to post and verify users.

[amenite]

Need to require log in to post and verify users.

The spam is from registered accounts. Today's problem seems to be that there's no verification when creating an account - you basically just fill out some fields and click OK and you have your valid user ID. I hope it will be sorted out in time; there's much value here that I would miss if went away.

[Goofproof]

Need to require log in to post and verify users.

they are logged in as users!!!! Jim

[chunkyfrog]

All this effort has to be for a purpose.
An EVIL purpose, but one, nonetheless.

[Pugsy]

we are getting most of this spam from registered accounts ...so they can sneak in links
but I have removed some today that was from "guest" accounts...same chinese/korean/asshole dude.

Need to require log in to post and verify users.

This is already in place...each account has to be tied to an email address and a captcha is needed too.
Obviously..it's easy to get email addresses and I guess bypass captcha thing which is amazing to me because most of the time I can't see the image myself.

The way to stop it is to set a time limits between posts from one log-in, one or two minutes.

This time limit thing is already in place...I have seen it when I try to submit something too soon after I submitted something else.
Hence the multiple IDs....he's got it on a bot now to automatically submit as soon as the time limit is up...that's why we get a shitload about every minute.

This spammer has figured out how to bypass the security measures in place at this time.

We are up to around 35 pages of this shit. Not much we can do until Carolyn checks in (I have alerted her to the problem) and can start removing this shit in bulk. One at a time when he is posting faster than we can remove it is spinning our wheels.
It's a holiday weekend and I suspect that this has been planned for some time.

[Pugsy]

The user ID has to be blocked...and I see them online right now but I don't have the powers to block them...that has to come from admin level.

At admin level all the posts made under one ID can be deleted in one fell click of the button.

Carolyn is the only one (and I suppose Johnny but I bet he leaves it up to Carolyn) with the powers.

I quit trying to remove them...he's posting 10 while I am removing 1. My hand hurts.

[Pugsy]

I suspect by the time this is all over we will be talking about thousands of posts...looks like about 10 per minute and every minute.
Going to take some cleaning up if this continues until Tues.
Either that or the website will crash which might be a blessing.

[Pugsy]

I don't understand the purpose...doesn't the asshole know we don't read Chinese/Korean or assholeese?
This attack may be a trial run for some other plan for later.

Sigh...I post this and it immediately goes off page because he's posting so fast. Got them bots working overtime.
Fairly easy....he does the human work which isn't much and let's the bots take over.

[RogerSC]

This is one of those "doing something because I can" things...there's no profit in posting links and advertising in a language that few of us read. So it's just a couple of kids doing this because they can. To get some attention, some light into their drab lives.

Okay, so much for today. Seems like a lot of approaches one could take in stopping this...too many posts per minute for a user seems like a prime way to go. Then banning repeat offenders. Just make it too much work to get the attention that whoever this is craves.

Oh well, I'll come back another day and hope for the best.