Bulletguy Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 I notice an increase in the amount of spam postings in the forum. There are currently seven threads on this site. Other than ignoring i'm not sure what else can be done. Possibly Duncan could look at ways of vetting new members signing up? It needs sorting out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Something's wrong with the forum, you don't see spam on other forums at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mel64 Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 I have seen an increase in the amount of spam postings on the forum. But how do you stop it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 This ‘live streaming’ type of spamming (which began on these forums in April 2016) has evidently being occurring elsewhere for some while - this late-2013 USA forum thread refers: http://neighbors.denverpost.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=123494530 The Out&AboutLive forum registration procedure includes no ‘anti-robot’ protection, so it should be relatively simple to write code that can automatically create/register a new forum user with a unique randomised user-name and then automatically create postings with randomised titles that advertise this live streaming thing. Amateur forum administrators (me for instance) have been appointed by Duncan to combat spamming, but this approach addresses the effect not the cause. I have admin privileges that allow me to edit or delete any posting with no time constraints and delete, move, freeze and sticky any thread. (I can’t ‘ban’ a forum member though!) As you’ll note I’ve deleted all the ‘live streaming’ spam threads that appeared in the last 24 hours. Although the present level of this type of spamming is bearable (and hopefully the other amateur administrators are performing their de-spamming duties when I’m not looking at these forums) each spam posting needs to be removed individually and this gets tiresome. There seems to be nothing to prevent whoever is doing this from posting, say, a couple of hundred spams at a time rather than just a few, which would effectively make these forums unusable. The problem was discussed here http://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/Motorhomes/Motorhome-Matters/Spam-attack/41638/ and the only genuinely effective solution is to overhaul the over-10-years-old forum registration system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthur49 Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 If I see a spam thread I post a blank reply but with Subject "SPAM" to highlight for mods. Not sure if it helps but the thread disappears shortly afterwards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PJay Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Derek Uzzell - 2016-07-10 8:03 AM This ‘live streaming’ type of spamming (which began on these forums in April 2016) has evidently being occurring elsewhere for some while - this late-2013 USA forum thread refers: http://neighbors.denverpost.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=123494530 The Out&AboutLive forum registration procedure includes no ‘anti-robot’ protection, so it should be relatively simple to write code that can automatically create/register a new forum user with a unique randomised user-name and then automatically create postings with randomised titles that advertise this live streaming thing. Amateur forum administrators (me for instance) have been appointed by Duncan to combat spamming, but this approach addresses the effect not the cause. I have admin privileges that allow me to edit or delete any posting with no time constraints and delete, move, freeze and sticky any thread. (I can’t ‘ban’ a forum member though!) As you’ll note I’ve deleted all the ‘live streaming’ spam threads that appeared in the last 24 hours. Although the present level of this type of spamming is bearable (and hopefully the other amateur administrators are performing their de-spamming duties when I’m not looking at these forums) each spam posting needs to be removed individually and this gets tiresome. There seems to be nothing to prevent whoever is doing this from posting, say, a couple of hundred spams at a time rather than just a few, which would effectively make these forums unusable. The problem was discussed here http://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/Motorhomes/Motorhome-Matters/Spam-attack/41638/ and the only genuinely effective solution is to overhaul the over-10-years-old forum registration system. We have to thank people like Derek and others, for their input. Have to agree, that vetting needs to be administered with new posters. What is the point of banning people , who come back under another name?? AND not only once, but in some cases several times? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Den Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 They are not posting in block as before. I've deleted several over the last few days. If you notice any that I miss. Send a pm and I'll delete them. Den Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Den Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Just deleted 2 and can't find any more. Problem is. When someone sends a blank reply it shows up as a reply. I tend to scan down for " 0 " replies. So throws me and takes longer to find the scammers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogerThat Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Why don't the admins put reCAPTCHA on the forum sign up page? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted July 11, 2016 Share Posted July 11, 2016 arthur49 - 2016-07-10 10:08 AM If I see a spam thread I post a blank reply but with Subject "SPAM" to highlight for mods. Not sure if it helps but the thread disappears shortly afterwards Yes it does help - I certainly find it useful. As far as ‘banning’ is concerned (P Jay’s comment) this is really another issue. Deliberate user-identity resurrection has happened infrequently in the past but isn’t the problem with this type of spamming. Administrators (including me) can ’see’ a poster’s IP Address, but I don’t know if Duncan can ban forum usage via that Address, and in any case I’m doubtful if that would be an effective anti-spam measure. Regarding RogerThat’s question, this goes back to what I said earlier - that the forum’s ancient registration system needs to be updated/replaced to include anti-spam protection. I don’t know how difficult/expensive it would be to do this, but as long as the O&AL forums work (after a fashion) and the administrators (paid and unpaid) can keep spam under control, I can’t see Warners forking out for anti-spam software revisions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan MMM Posted July 11, 2016 Share Posted July 11, 2016 Derek Uzzell - 2016-07-11 8:42 AM arthur49 - 2016-07-10 10:08 AM If I see a spam thread I post a blank reply but with Subject "SPAM" to highlight for mods. Not sure if it helps but the thread disappears shortly afterwards Yes it does help - I certainly find it useful. As far as ‘banning’ is concerned (P Jay’s comment) this is really another issue. Deliberate user-identity resurrectionIt has happened infrequently in the past but isn’t the problem with this type of spamming. Administrators (including me) can ’see’ a poster’s IP Address, but I don’t know if Duncan can ban forum usage via that Address, and in any case I’m doubtful if that would be an effective anti-spam measure. Regarding RogerThat’s question, this goes back to what I said earlier - that the forum’s ancient registration system needs to be updated/replaced to include anti-spam protection. I don’t know how difficult/expensive it would be to do this, but as long as the O&AL forums work (after a fashion) and the administrators (paid and unpaid) can keep spam under control, I can’t see Warners forking out for anti-spam software revisions. Yes I can see and ban people by user name and IP address. As has been mentioned, the only way to restrict this kind of spamming is to use a capatcha type registration system. I'll put forward the suggestion but I wouldn't hold your breath at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted July 11, 2016 Author Share Posted July 11, 2016 How would CAPTCHA help stop it? I've noticed a few sites using it and all it does for me is bloody annoy me! It doesn't stop me from accessing a particular site, just prolongs entering. Apart from the scam/fraud postings offering fake documents, i can't even see the point of spam posts at all. There are obviously too many people with no job to go to and too much time on their hands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 Bulletguy Including a CAPTCHA at the forum registration stage should make life more difficult for whoever is responsible for the type of spamming currently happening on the O&ALive forums, but it wouldn’t necessarily stop it. Currently O&ALIVE forum registration merely involves providing a user-name and a valid e-mail address. A password is then sent to the e-mail address and this password then permits that user-name to login to the O&ALIve forums and post. Although a degree of automation can be applied to forum registration (eg. unique random user-names could be created automatically) at the registration stage a valid e-mail address will need to be provided to receive the password relating to the user-name. Once the password has been received the spammer can use the user-name and password to post to the O&ALive forums. It’s logical to assume that a human being (or beings) is carrying out this ‘live streaming’ spamming, as it’s difficult to see how it can be done fully robotically given the requirement to obtain a password and the fact that the spam postings are relatively small in number per ‘batch’ and have appeared in O&ALive forums other than Motorhome Matters. It’s possible that the spammer uses only a small number of e-mail addresses (or just one e-mail address) when registering, but users’ e-mail addresses are unavailable to me and, as far as I’m aware, the O&ALive forum software has no way of filtering out spammers at the registration stage based on previously used e-mail addresses. A CAPTCHA at the posting stage should certainly dissuade spamming but, as you’ve observed, it will slow things down and is likely to irritate genuine users. At the moment ‘amateur’ forum administrators can delete spam postings, but only Duncan can ‘ban’ a user-name. I’ve just deleted three spam postings, all with the same user-name, but that user-name remains ‘live' and can immediately be re-used for more spamming if the spammer so chooses. If Duncan had carried out the three postings deletion and then ‘banned’ the user-name, the spammer could not use that user-name subsequently. I don’t know what benefit whoever is posting this stuff to these forums gets for doing it, but as it’s been going on for several months presumably there must be some financial gain. (Unless it’s a ‘banned’ ex-forum member who’s being bloody-minded!!) There’s plenty of on-line stuff about forum spamming problems and how best to combat them, but it may be necessary in this instance to tolerate what’s happening, delete the junk ASAP and hope this eventually discourages the spammer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted July 12, 2016 Author Share Posted July 12, 2016 Thanks for the comprehensive and informative reply Derek! So if you and others can delete posts, assuming it's obviously spam type post, how come you can't block/ban the user? You may as well be sweeping leaves up in a wind! That said, once banned from a site there is nothing to stop a person from signing back up under another user name. As for motive i think money must be involved as i can only liken it to nuisance phone calls or junk mail (letterbox mail). By far the worst are the fake emails and i use Hotmail for non-important communication. A few months back i received a mobile text saying Hotmail had noted "suspicious activity" on my account so i should change the password in case it had been compromised. I did that and since then i've had very convincing emails from two Banks informing me to reset the password to my account. Only one problem. I've never held an account at either Bank!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 The ‘amateur’ forum administrators have been allocated (by Duncan) the privileges I mentioned in my posting of 10 July 2016 8:03 AM above. These privileges are fairly powerful allowing me to run riot on these forums if I so chose, rewriting history, fabricating things forum members would never dream of saying, deleting threads willy-nilly at 4am when nobody is keeping an eye on the forums, etc. However, Duncan has not (as far as I’m aware) provided any amateur administrators with the capability to ‘ban’ users. This is hardly surprising as it’s normally an extreme punishment best left to the forum’s professional Moderator to mete out. In the case of the spam that’s being posted now and during the last few months, it would be more effective if amateur administrators could ‘ban’ the spammer by user-name or IP address, but having that privilege would allow the amateurs to also ban genuine forum members if they so wished. Forum members have been complaining about the spam (hence this thread) and appointing amateur administrators from within the forum community was a simple way to delete the offending postings reasonably rapidly. As you observe, ‘banning’ whoever is posting this stuff via user-name still won’t be fully effective, but it should be more effective than just deleting the spam posts. It might be useful for, say, a week’s worth of spam-postings to be moved by administrators to the admin-only forum (which you won’t be able to view) for analysis rather than just delete the postings. There may be a pattern that can be exploited, but this work really ought to be done by whoever is maintaining the forum’s software and is familiar with its functionality. At the moment there seem to be enough amateur administrators regularly deleting spam-postings to keep the stuff well under control - and it reduces Duncan’s anti-spam work load significantly - but if the spam arrives late-night/early-morning (I note you initiated this thread at 2.08 AM) it’s unlikely to be dealt with until the UK working day normally begins. There’s a difference between “spam” and “scam” and, although the stuff being posted here is a nuisance and the person posting it presumably gains some sort of benefit (financial or psychological) from posting it, the intent does not seem to be malicious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colin Posted July 13, 2016 Share Posted July 13, 2016 Well it's usually blatantly obvious which threads are spam, but a bit annoying sometimes like just at the moment when most of the new threads are spam. capture can work, but has already gone throu updates in 'style' as the bots can get throu the early type, only matter of time before they crack the newer types? The only forums I know of that don't suffer this use admin vetting of first few postings. p.s. I see that in the minute or so it took me to type this post several spam threads got deleted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will86 Posted July 13, 2016 Share Posted July 13, 2016 I decide who is genuine when they are prepared to add their home location AND an email AND make a swift reply to a question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pepe63xnotuse Posted July 13, 2016 Share Posted July 13, 2016 Derek Uzzell - 2016-07-12 8:56 AM I don’t know what benefit whoever is posting this stuff to these forums gets for doing it, but as it’s been going on for several months presumably there must be some financial gain.... ....(Unless it’s a ‘banned’ ex-forum member who’s being bloody-minded!!) . I have no idea how forums function but I recall one particular, "multi-banned" forum user, who having re-joined under his 3rd-4th-5th ? username , was quite brazen about how he had just used a proxy server to circumvent the "ban"?.. So if someone has that much time on their hands, to waste it faffing about constantly re-joining a forum that they had frequently received moderator warnings on, and/or were being banned from, then I wouldn't put anything past some people... :-S or possibly another motorhome forum causing "mischief"? ( or are they all being hit to the same degree?) It does seem that, the more Spam is mentioned, the more of it there is? (..of the couple of other forums I occasionally use, I can't say that I've ever noticed any Spam on them. Whether that is down to their degree of moderating or their actual system, I have no idea?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted July 14, 2016 Share Posted July 14, 2016 The Out&AboutLive forums used to carry a comprehensive Acceptable Use Policy statement defining what was permissible for participants to post (no adverts, no vitriolic abuse, etc.) but if this statement is still present I can’t find it. Consequently, if forum participants are not being told how to behave, it could be argued that the type of spam that’s been occurring here during the last few months is acceptable to Warners. As posting the ‘live streaming’ spam here seems to involve some overhead effort-wise, it’s intriguing that the poster bothers to do it. I’m very doubtful that forum members look at the spam and say to themselves “Wow, that’s really exciting and just what I wanted to know!” - it’s just an irritating nuisance. Besides which, now that there are several forum members rapidly deleting the junk, there seems to be even less ‘profit’ than before in spamming these forums. It’s up to the system management staff to deal with this issue (presumably Mark “MC Whelk”) - the Moderator and co-opted amateur administrators can only do so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted July 14, 2016 Share Posted July 14, 2016 About 30 minutes ago two ‘live streaming’ spam postings were placed on this forum using the user-name "ojanabostu” with an IP address of 119.30.32.143. These postings were rapidly removed by the Moderator or by one of the forum-member administrators. It’s worth noting what a GOOGLE-search on “ojanabostu” retrieves: https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ojanabostu It will be evident from this that the Out&AboutLive forums are not being specifically targeted and that other forums are being similarly afflicted. The IP addess is mentioned on anti-spam websites and (apparently) relates to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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