Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Pennywise · Post by **Pennywise** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 8:18 am

You are doing a great job Pugsy!

Pugsy · Post by **Pugsy** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 8:43 am

As for why I think a human is involved beyond just the bots.

It used to be that I would see obvious accounts registered from this dude during the day or evening with an occasional post.
I no longer see those obvious new spammer accounts in the member list.
He quit this morning after I arrived and removed the one account that he created after Ben did the clean up this morning before I got here.

If it was all bots...they would be trying to create new accounts all day and post all day.

Someone decided to not turn the bots on until the wee hours of the morning.

jnk... · Post by **jnk...** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 2:18 pm

Never underestimate the insidious all-knowing evil power of the learning-enabled AI bots.

But yeah, I'd like to give the guy(s) ultimately responsible for the spam-tsunami a swift kick in their bots, myself. And I'm a peaceful man.

I guess the InterWeb police dudes don't have the time or power to punish this sort of directed cybercrime. But it is hurting more than commerce when it is directed at this sort of forum.

To my way of thinking, the fact that the language characters of the spam are Asian is an indication that the attack is likely originating from somewhere OTHER than Asia. I mean, if the perp knows how to erase his fingerprints in one aspect of what he is doing with his bot pack, then the fingerprints that are visible are likely not from the perp's own paws. Hey, just me.

chunkyfrog · Post by **chunkyfrog** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 3:26 pm

Considering that the behavior could be DANGEROUS, as well as very likely
practice for illegal activity, should alert international law enforcement
to STOMP THESE INSECTS OUT..

jnk... · Post by **jnk...** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 3:42 pm

chunkyfrog wrote: ↑
Wed Mar 14, 2018 3:26 pm
Considering that the behavior could be DANGEROUS, as well as very likely
practice for illegal activity, should alert international law enforcement
to STOMP THESE INSECTS OUT..

Why is it always about insects with you frog people?

Pugsy · Post by **Pugsy** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 3:48 pm

jnk... wrote: ↑
Wed Mar 14, 2018 3:42 pm
Why is it always about insects with you frog people?

Maybe it's the free all you can eat buffet they envision when people go squashing insects.

chunkyfrog · Post by **chunkyfrog** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 4:13 pm

Uh, busted!
Oops!

Pugsy · Post by **Pugsy** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 8:02 pm

He's back early tonight. I will try to keep a closer eye on the new member list.
I was away for just a few minutes folding laundry and he tried to sneak in.
I will be here for a few hours more so if he comes back again I will block him again.
Usually after I have blocked 3 or 4 new accounts from posting again he lays low for a while and comes back and tries again. So he may not come back for a few hours.

It will likely be a mess here tomorrow morning...but don't worry...we will get it cleaned up.

chunkyfrog · Post by **chunkyfrog** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 8:56 pm

Thank you again, dear Pugsy.

Doublev · Post by **Doublev** » Thu Mar 15, 2018 1:37 am

Anyone want to reach out to the company they are advertising? If you check on google translate.. maybe someone can call "Jimmy" on "WeChat" and find out who they hired to do their "internet marketing". I am pretty sure this is all automated. is this forum running the latest version of phpbb? maybe there is some backdoor or something these guys are figuring out how to use. I find it hard to believe they manually create accounts.. unless Jimmy has a lot of $$ ($50/day) to spend nobody is going to do go through this effort for all the websites they must be spamming.

posts say
"Consulting Consultant Jimmy at your service: Q/WeChat: 1151714174"

Holden4th · Post by **Holden4th** » Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:36 am

With the current set up the accounts have to created manually. This was not the case last year and the bots had a field day.

There is a simple solution that will work temporarily until new measures are put in place. Every new thread has to be completed with a Captcha Code before submission. All it requires in it's basic form is one extra click of a mouse on a radio button that says "I am not a robot". It can be taken a step further where the code has to be entered manually. When you think about it, it's not that much extra to do after you've gone to the effort of creating a new thread.

Pugsy · Post by **Pugsy** » Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:40 am

Well....I am here and in clean up mode. Got my coffee and I am all set.

And I can quickly block the new accounts. At least I can ban them quicker than they can make them.

chartle · Post by **chartle** » Thu Mar 15, 2018 5:57 am

Holden4th wrote: ↑
Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:36 am
With the current set up the accounts have to created manually. This was not the case last year and the bots had a field day.

There is a simple solution that will work temporarily until new measures are put in place. Every new thread has to be completed with a Captcha Code before submission. All it requires in it's basic form is one extra click of a mouse on a radio button that says "I am not a robot". It can be taken a step further where the code has to be entered manually. When you think about it, it's not that much extra to do after you've gone to the effort of creating a new thread.

Not really going to work all the time. Here is a Google search for captcha solving services.

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GI ... X57GTSLTQ4

Doublev · Post by **Doublev** » Fri Mar 16, 2018 1:36 am

chartle wrote: ↑
Thu Mar 15, 2018 5:57 am
Not really going to work all the time. Here is a Google search for captcha solving services.

It makes sense they are using something like that. This forum is powered by phpBB.. since it is free and open source I am sure it is fairly common on the internet.. so it is not hard for them to create a script to post on all of the forums that use this. It is nothing personal against cpaptalk..

I think it is likely this will get worse over time as others hire the same "service" and there are copycats. I guess if my company wanted tens of thousands of posts on various forums for a few dollars a day these are the guys to hire. Perhaps if the posts were in english and there was something people wanted maybe they would bite -- it doesn't take much to get a return on that investment. But being in chinese it stands out as spam to us.

They probably dont even know what cpap is and are doing this to tens of thousands of site.. it is just a site that runs on phpbb and they have a script to post on it.

SnoringInOregon · Post by **SnoringInOregon** » Fri Mar 16, 2018 5:03 am

Sigh.

Currently the only non-spam in first 5 pages is this sticky thread. I feel sorry for all the work Pugsy and others need to do to clean this up.

I don't know what switches can be flipped in the software to reduce this. But perhaps they should all be flipped on. E.g. allow ascii characters, allow only 1 post total from a new account unless a moderator is online, force captchas on first 10 posts from an account, etc.

But "the usual stuff isn't working". It's just not fair to Pugsy to ask her to deal with so much. Yes she volunteered, but to help people, not to battle spammers.

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