CPAPtalk.com

Your not kidding... I killed about 1/2 dozen before leaving for work and then when I had a moment at work about 5:30am, checked back and killed another 1/2 dozen... and it's only 8am now.

Lynne

I was online from ~3:30 - 4:00 am and they were popping up left and right. I didn't have the energy to start deleting so I just read what I wanted to read and went to bed. It would be impossible for a hundred people to delete fast enough to effectively get rid of the spam if it's coming from bots as I suspect. The administrators really need to rethink their strategy. Allowing manual deletion was a good idea to start with, but the bots have beaten it so now we must find another way. Please start banning IPs! It's not that difficult and wouldn't require many man hours after the initial ban. Plus once they figured out that they were being banned, they would stop. Maybe. The only way to guarantee that it stops is to eliminate guest posting and requiring some authentication before posting. Yes it would be annoying at first, but wouldn't it be better than all this spam? This forum is a great resource. I would hate to see it ruined by something that is preventable!

Amigo wrote:I agree, Den, this has gotten totally out-of-hand. Since bots are obviously doing the inserting, manual deletion is NEVER going to make a difference, and is going to continue to be a constant source of frustration. I'm especially annoyed by all the really OLD posts it leaves behind which clutter up the Forum maddeningly. It's time for the administration here to address this issue once and for all, or risk losing its participants. I will no longer delete as it's a waste of my time.

I will suggest that the apparent absence of spam is merely cosmetic. Oh LOOKIE! NO SPAM! What is hidden are the hordes of busybodies who have nothing better to do than sit around and generate new spam, or delete it, depending on which side of the battle line you are sitting. I guess that would be US !? While sitting around and complaining about spam and deleting it (or not), the meaningful dialogue languishes. cpaptalk is becoming downtown Falluja, mostly a battle zone. Either way spam is killing the forum and nothing is being done to stop it at the source. The previous idea of an IP filter seems pretty simple and workable, it doesn't seem to resonate here.

I agree with amigo, add cpaptalk to the "DO NOT RESCUSITATE" list. (slightly paraphrased). But DO watch for signs of electrical activity.

-HKS

harikarishimari wrote:The previous idea of an IP filter seems pretty simple and workable, it doesn't seem to resonate here.

And has been suggested many times. It can be done at the router, firewall or software levels.

Den

It is a multi-layered approach...

1st

Tight control of foreign ips. Sorry but the ip's that are guilty of spam are predominately from a few countries. This is BEST controlled by the .htaccess file. Block the biggest offenders before they even get to the door.

2nd

Block ANY guest post that tries to post a hyperlink. The ONLY guests that seem to do this are the spammers.

3rd

Use PHPBB to block specific in country ips. The reason for this is to only block the one or two offenders, not the entire class or range.

4th

STOP ALLOWING SPAM REGISTRATIONS! This can be accomplished a number of ways. Capcha (visual verification), renaming any of the variables that are exposed during the registration process (i.e. "IAGREE" is used for the screen used to verify age, this can be changed to something oddball so scripting will break for the spammers, and this is TOTALLY transparent to the end user.)


This approach still allows guests to post, but raises the bar quite a bit for spammers.

or

You could just ignore it and hope it goes away...

Mikesus wrote:You could just ignore it and hope it goes away...

Yeah, like that has worked . It use to be that I didn't get a shot at killing spam but now I'm whacking them big time. I guess the thrill has worn off on some.

SPAM??? we still talking about that?

:::YAWN:::

Actually there is another step...

You HAVE to get rid of the spam accounts, or at the very least change their password so they don't log on... The Spam accounts are pretty easy to spot. They are usually the ones with all the fields filled in

I thank snore dog and the others who are working to get rid of the spam. For notTooTechSavvy folks like me, I am glad there are those who care about keeping this forum dependable and useful. It is one of the few places to get true support and information. The docs and DMEs are not much help! (and I am a health care provider...)

In case you missed it, the following was posted by Johnny Goodman on Friday, Sept. 1, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Post subject: The Next Step In CPAPtalk.com Spam Control

johnnygoodman wrote: Greetings CPAPtalkers,

We've been getting hit hard the last few days. Some have said that it is to the point where it is taking away from the forum and I'm inclined to agree. As I went through all the reported spam and deleted it, I saw that the same few IPs were big offenders.

It has been suggested before that we bad IPs of repeat offenders. On Wednesday, we're going to be upgrading our spam guard to allow us to choose a "restrict this IP from visiting CPAPtalk.com".

I think this will improve the situation, if not, we're going to have to consider "type the characters in the image" style spam prevention.

Johnny

Johnny has indicated he will be implementing new anti-spam tactics on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2006.