Derek Uzzell Posted February 23, 2023 Share Posted February 23, 2023 The Out&AboutLive forums are currently being spammed, with multiple Chinese-language postings appearing on several of the forums. This has been reported to the forums' Admin staff via the Forum Support forum https://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/topic/58702-chatterbox-and-caravan-chat-forums-hacked/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted February 24, 2023 Author Share Posted February 24, 2023 The Chinese-language spam problem continues with user-names gggplayal111, Manqo096589 and Brad0ga being most recently involved. A brief GOOGLE-search of those user-names reveals that other forums (not just UK ones) are currently being hit in the same way. (I notice - on the Invision Community platform forum - that protecting against 'foreign language' spam postings has been discussed there in the past and that there may be 3rd-party add-ons to stop this happening.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted February 24, 2023 Author Share Posted February 24, 2023 This is just one example of the problem https://www.rvforum.net/threads/why-do-we-keep-getting-chinese-spam.143007/ One posting in that thread says I cut and pasted one of the spam posts into Google Translate. They're ads for forged diplomas and faked transcripts from prestigious universities. Followed by a list of just about every institute of higher education in the western world. This is the content of the spam posts being sent to the O&AL forums Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keithl Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 2 hours ago, Derek Uzzell said: The Chinese-language spam problem continues with user-names gggplayal111, Manqo096589 and Brad0ga being most recently involved. All now flagged as Spammers which will hide their posts and prevent them from making any further posts. I will ask the Admins if anything can be done to prevent further similar spam. Keith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barryd999 Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 On my own forum obviously you can delete spammers accounts, block their IP etc but you can also block IP's from signing up from certain countries and regions. There is generally a range of IP's they come from also so you should be able to block them or the Admin could. Some sites require human verification also but its not that practical but you can use sites like this also. https://www.stopforumspam.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted February 25, 2023 Author Share Posted February 25, 2023 I came across this long Tripadviser thread that indicates that the same format/content Chinese-language spam was occurring 7 years ago. https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g1-i10702-k8734444-Chinese_Language_Spam_in_the_Air_Travel_forum-Air_Travel.html A GOOGLE-search on "invision community chinese spam" will show that the problem has been recognised in the past for the software platform on which the O&AL forums now runs. https://www.google.com/search?q=invision+community+chinese+spam&oq=invision+community+chinese+spam&aqs=chrome..69i57.13138j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Invision Community (IC) has an integrated "Spam Defence Service" (SDS) https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/security-and-rules/spam-prevention-r9/ but I notice that a 3rd-party pay-to-use extension has been advertised on the IC forum to deal with 'foreign-language content' spam postings - which suggests that SDS can't cope with it. There are various means of combatting spam, but whatever methods are currently in place for the O&AL forums clearly have no effect on the Chinese-language stuff. (This morning 3 new user-names were used to add 26, 55 and 15 postings to O&AL forums, and nothing remedial can be done until someone with Moderator powers logs in.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klyne Posted February 26, 2023 Share Posted February 26, 2023 Don't new posters need moderator approval before making their first post? I don't know what the moderator set up on this forum is but it would be one way of preventing unwanted posts? David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted February 27, 2023 Author Share Posted February 27, 2023 This link is to a May 2022 Invision Community forum thread relating to the platform's defence against spam. https://invisioncommunity.com/news/community-management/improved-spam-defense-in-47-with-hcaptcha-r1253/ For someone wishing to join the Out&AboutLive forums to ask an urgent question, a Moderator approval 'delayed postings' approach will be far from ideal. (I've considered joining forums that I was aware had such policies and it was always a disincentive.) A Moderator approval defence against spam may be acceptable if Moderator oversight exists 24/7, but the only person currently addressing the Chinese-language spam appears to be Keithl ( a 'volunteer' Moderator) during 'office hours'. At present the Chinese junk (😃) is low-key, with the number of postings per spam event being quite low (I think the most I've seen per event so far was 75 postings) so the problem may fade away without extra safeguards being put in place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keithl Posted February 27, 2023 Share Posted February 27, 2023 It now only takes a couple of seconds to flag a poster as a Spammer which immediately hides all their posts and prevents them from making any more posts so really easy to remove them. I have emailed Daniel and the other main admins but have not heard back from them. I guess they all had a busy time last week at the NEC show??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david lloyd Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 On 2/23/2023 at 7:47 AM, Derek Uzzell said: The Out&AboutLive forums are currently being spammed, with multiple Chinese-language postings appearing on several of the forums. This has been reported to the forums' Admin staff via the Forum Support forum https://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/topic/58702-chatterbox-and-caravan-chat-forums-hacked/ Think they may be back… David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david lloyd Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 Wow, two minutes later and all the Spam postings have gone - fast work guys well done. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keithl Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 We get 3 or 4 every morning making around 100 posts in total. It takes me less than a minute to flag them as Spammers which hides all their posts but as I am no longer an early morning riser it may be this time of day before I gat around to checking. Keith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colin Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 You are doing a good job AFAIC as I've not seen one spam posting, but then I'm not on here 24/7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caddies104 Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 Logged on this morning and all topics were in Chinese? Just logged in and all now seems ok 👍 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted March 3, 2023 Author Share Posted March 3, 2023 The people who are responsible for the Chinese-language spam join the Out&AboutLive forums in the wee small hours of the UK morning and add a batch of spam postings to O&AL forums shortly afterwards. These postings sit there until Moderator Keithl logs in (around 09:00) and takes action that causes the spam postings to disappear and prevents the user-names attached to the spam from making any further postings. As it's obviously a simple matter for the spammers to join the O&AL forums, the next day they just user different user-names and add another batch of spam postings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.