To arms! We're under attack!

Natures_Witness · 2014-12-14T16:05:12.000Z

The bots are invading! Quick, grab the guns and man the walls! Close all shops in the mall! Secure all animals in the zoo! Prepare to bomb Nigeria!!

…

Ahem

Sorry about that, panicked a bit. But seriously, this is getting out of hand, does anyone have any bright ideas how to get rid of these blasted things?

EditorRUS · 2014-12-14T16:06:03.000Z

Lel.

FunsizeNinja123 · 2014-12-14T16:11:09.000Z

This is really getting out of hand with the spambots.

Valpo · 2014-12-14T16:26:06.000Z

/Valpo is ready to bomb Nigeria.

Natures_Witness · 2014-12-14T17:36:34.000Z

It’s getting worse! Now they’re speaking Russian and (I think?) French!

Pthalocy · 2014-12-14T17:38:54.000Z

All I can do is report to moderator, so that is what I am doing. I’m not touchin’ the damn things.

In the past I’ve seen restrictions to account creation, email verification, capchas. Same as the wiki, really. The best solutions generally plague good users along with unwanted bots, so it’s an all around shitfest.

razor · 2014-12-14T17:45:52.000Z

This is interesting starting impression for this forum

If the questions asked when registering are randomly picked from a pool and not generated it would not be very hard to defeat them.

Pthalocy · 2014-12-14T17:47:15.000Z

Yeah. I nearly reported you for being a bot at one point, I am sorry. The forums are usually free of this kind of poop. Today is some kind of freak accident, and I am setting the accident-free workday billboard back to ZERO.

razor · 2014-12-14T17:51:43.000Z

You do not speak Russian

))

Pthalocy · 2014-12-14T17:53:07.000Z

No I do not. I understand a little French and some German. Again, my apologies. Are the Russian spambot posts as random as the English ones? I’m assuming yes.

razor · 2014-12-14T17:57:15.000Z

Yes

Google translate probably

Caconym · 2014-12-14T18:00:51.000Z

That’s a crazy amount of spam, normally it’s only 1 or 2. This is the great spam-storm (related closely tot the shit-storm but with spam).

Lord_Letto · 2014-12-14T18:07:47.000Z

Blaze · 2014-12-14T18:15:34.000Z

A simple board-specific verification should work:

For example:
What monster is shown: “J”?

If need be, you can cycle through different questions and include an answer sheet.
Most spambot writers don’t bother to bypass these kinds of questions, particularly for small forums like this.

jokermatt999 · 2014-12-14T19:27:35.000Z

Who is the forum admin anyway? I wouldn’t mind doing some time as spam janitor if they need some help.

stk2008 · 2014-12-14T19:30:56.000Z

why not add some verification to account creation?.

Though this wont help for none bots whice some of these posts seem to be

HS1342 · 2014-12-14T19:43:05.000Z

This shit is really getting out of hand…

Is simplemachines even capable of adding verification?

Natures_Witness · 2014-12-14T19:46:14.000Z

I had the same thought. Looking at the member list, we have four Admins; GlyphGryph, Kevin Granade, GalenEvil, and of course The Darkling Wolf. I’m pretty sure Galen isn’t here anymore, so that leaves three people between us and the badly-spelled Hordes.

I’m sure they could handle it, but I don’t know how busy they are, and give how many of the blasted things are showing up, I think it would be nice for some of us to offer a hand. I sent Kevin a PM offering to help, I figured that was the most direct solution.

HS1342 · 2014-12-14T19:56:52.000Z

Aw shit, I just saw a spambot respond to a already existing thread…
Is this the end?
Do we have to destroy this place with a nuke from orbit?

Illogical_Blox · 2014-12-14T20:02:02.000Z

French, Russian and porn. Really.