Why are all the posts in Chinese?

Suddenly all the posts are in Chinese! Probably this one is too. What's happened?

The forum is being flooded by some script kiddie, it seems. The posts are probably random chinese lorem-ipsum texts, news or whatever. The most effective way to prevent this is through CAPTCHAs, but the forum's software is probably old and/or it doesn't have this function.

We have recently finished a huge upgrade to the forum software. It has had the effect of slowing them down, but they still bypass the reCaptcha by having a human verify it for the bot.

If possible have all new members have first post or two need to be approved first by moderator before publishing.

Not Chinese, Korean.

Doesn't really matter if we call it Chinese or Korean or Asian or crap...it's spam and obviously a huge annoyance.
He's not done either. I am pretty sure that I recognize some new member screen IDs that he hasn't posted with just yet.
I hesitate to block them when there haven't been any posts to those new accounts just in case they are legit.

A human is doing the registering and thus getting past the Captcha thing...and then he turns his bots loose.

SarahB wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:09 am

Suddenly all the posts are in Chinese! Probably this one is too. What's happened?

If you've ever wondered why spam is bad....

There's your answer.

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 08, 2018 8:38 am

I hesitate to block them when there haven't been any posts to those new accounts just in case they are legit.

a LITTLE collateral damage in a war like this is acceptable.

If they are legit, they'll send an email.

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 08, 2018 8:38 am

A human is doing the registering and thus getting past the Captcha thing...and then he turns his bots loose.

Don't be so sure, bots process the Captcha's

No filter for foreign characters?
Too bad.

lucas7bm wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:23 am

The forum is being flooded by some script kiddie, it seems. The posts are probably random chinese lorem-ipsum texts, news or whatever. The most effective way to prevent this is through CAPTCHAs, but the forum's software is probably old and/or it doesn't have this function.

thanks for that, lucas! i've ever heard it pronounced and i heard it as script "kitties"!!

zonker wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 08, 2018 6:14 pm

lucas7bm wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:23 am

The forum is being flooded by some script kiddie, it seems. The posts are probably random chinese lorem-ipsum texts, news or whatever. The most effective way to prevent this is through CAPTCHAs, but the forum's software is probably old and/or it doesn't have this function.

thanks for that, lucas! i've ever heard it pronounced and i heard it as script "kitties"!!

Hahahahahaha you're welcome.
And yeah, it's " kiddies". They are childish, it would be unfair to compare them to adorable kitties

Ah, that explains it. I wondered if it was my laptop. Now I can see that there are several other posts on the subject but I couldn't see them earlier.