The Next Step In CPAPtalk.com Spam Control

johnnygoodman · Post by **johnnygoodman** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:46 pm

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

wolftracker · Post by **wolftracker** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:51 pm

It really is time to do something additional about this.

It was fun deleting for a while ... but enough is enough

thanks again for a great site

wolf

JCraig · Post by **JCraig** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:51 pm

I know you know this, but I also want to put it out here:

You can also rename the PHP files and that will screw spammers hard. They're looking for posting.php and viewtopic.php but if you rename them to xxxx.php and yyyy.php, they're screwed.

Image typing also a good solution.

Wulfman · Post by **Wulfman** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:58 pm

Thanks, Johnny!

Best wishes,

Den

cpapjack · Post by **cpapjack** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 2:11 pm

wolftracker wrote:It was fun deleting for a while ... but enough is enough

I second this. I must've deleted 100+ over the past couple of days.

Thanks Johnny !!!

Sleepless on LI · Post by **Sleepless on LI** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 3:16 pm

Spam or no spam, it's still the absolute best site for everything sleep-related on the Internet.

Good luck with your new idea. Hope it works.

tlc95066 · Post by **tlc95066** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 3:53 pm

I know that this must be a pain in rear for you guys too.

Thanks Johnny!
teri

tomjax · Post by **tomjax** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 3:55 pm

Good first move, but I can imagine those folks are very resorceful and may consider it a challenge.

There seem to be a lot of very savvy computer nerds among us.

Maybe Johnny can enlist their help with this problem.

we can always start a new thread on keeping up with Jessica Simpsons love life or Britneys daily labor pangs.
Maybe even talk about the Warren Jeffs upcoming obsession with the news now that spam hunting is controlled, IF it is.

Happy weekend all. Don't let your hose droop.

Snoredog · Post by **Snoredog** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 4:54 pm

sorry johnny, but I'm NOT going to delete any more spam.

doing so is like spitting in the ocean. All it does is waste my time, does nothing to slow it down or eliminate it at the source.

I find I spend my time here hunting for spam, hitting the delete button and ending up reading the main index. I have better things to do.

There have been many ways suggested to controlling the spam problem here but those suggestions just get ignored.

at a minimum you could add the words poker, viagra and celebrex to the dirty word filter, you are filtering everything that is typed anyway, that would eliminate a lot of it automatically then relying on your members to hit the delete button.

Goofproof · Post by **Goofproof** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:06 pm

Another suggestion, the bots seem to like the very ,old posts over and over. Say you lock posts threads over 6 months or a year in age, leave them so they can be brought up and read, just stop new posting on them.

That way everyone could get the info from them but couldn't lock outdated post to the top. This could be a useful for spam and not propagate things that have changes, the new people don't know the difference, heck, sometimes I don't either. Jim

Snoredog · Post by **Snoredog** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:28 pm

Goofproof wrote:

Another suggestion, the bots seem to like the very ,old posts over and over. Say you lock posts threads over 6 months or a year in age, leave them so they can be brought up and read, just stop new posting on them.

Excellent idea, if someone wants to revise an old thread they can start a new one with a similar subject line, nothing worse than going through a 13 page year old thread and find it was spam that revived it.

tooly125 · Post by **tooly125** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 7:39 pm

How about streamlining the deleting process instead of the thank you page just send us back to the forum page that lists all the posts.

I have noticed different tactics being used by the spammers, multiple spam posts on one thread to delete it you have to click on the pervious page and not just on the last post.

Seems like we got sombodys attention.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 2:19 pm

Spam is easily dealt with... See post here -=> viewtopic.php?t=12799&start=19

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 2:22 pm

Oh by the way, blocking the IP's just makes the spammers change IP's, it does not stop them.

You have to get at the root of what their goal is.

To post links.

Take away the goal, and the spam goes away...

The Next Step In CPAPtalk.com Spam Control

The Next Step In CPAPtalk.com Spam Control

Thank you ...

Re: Thank you ...

spam