Spambot attack

[Morden]

Ok, so each time I visit, there are new spam messages, and every day, there are at least five users celebrating their birthdays. There are over 250 pages of registered users, but only about 60 people who have ever posted. This includes users who have only posted once.

I haven't checked the list before, so I'm not sure if new users keep registering, or if the current state of affairs if the aftermath of the spambot attack from last year.

Either way, some cleaning is in order. Personally, I would do away with all of the users without any postings, then I would take a look at those who are left [one time posters, mainly].

If those bots keep on registering, I would also take a look at the registration procedure, captcha, question - answer check, etc. and maybe see if MyBB offers a more bot proof registration alternative.

Current number of users is insane, and if this is left unattended, eventually it will become one hell of a mess to clean up. I've seen dozens of forums that got so spammed, you couldn't reach any of the original info and posts, even if you tried. Digging through thousands of pages of spam wasn't worth anyone's time.

So, bots-be-gone!

[Louie]

I agree. The spam detracts from wanting to post on this board.

[Morden]

I took a second look at the user list, and they just keep on registering. As many as five new users are being added every single day. Not only that, they give each other rep points. Some of the recently registered users, who only have posted spam, have up to three reputation stars.

If captchas and other anti-bot solutions can't stop them, new users should be approved manually.

[Loïc]

Do you have any administrator right ? Or is Flav the only one ?
If he needs some help, maybe some of us can.

Loïc

[Morden]

Do you have any administrator right?

If I had, I would have cleaned the user database a long time ago. Flavor is the only admin, and [as far as I can tell, anyway] wyndcrosser is the only moderator. I don't know the level of access he has, though.

We haven't seen Flavor around in a while, which probably means he's busy with work and family. I will drop him a PM, though, just to let him know we're still here, and there's cleaning to be done. :)

[Flavor]

So, actually, I had 2 main issues (on top of the work and family "problem").

1) I was out of the country for almost 2 weeks. Check https://twitter.com/FreeplayTech if you want to see a few pics I posted.

2) I just found out that a bunch of notifications (like the posts you guys were making here and the SPAM notifications) were going into my SPAM email folder. This means that I wasn't staying as on-top of these things as I had in the past.

Yes, I think this is all quite out of hand, really. I would welcome some help from Loic and Morden if you guys are volunteering.

[Loïc]

If I can help to do some SPAM cleaning, it's ok for me.