Deterrence of Spam Postings

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Bullhead
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Deterrence of Spam Postings

Post by Bullhead »

I notice that recently there have been almost daily spam postings advertising "other" (and I don't mean GWR) sites. I wonder whether requiring new members to register using a verifiable e-mail address such as that provided by their ISP rather than, say, Hotmail where multiple free accounts are available would deter this?
So - did anyone dare tell Stephenson, "It's not Rocket science"?
Tom Quayle
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Post by Tom Quayle »

Just on that note I am on hotmail and cannot access the site at college without using my hotmail address. This would be 1 problem with this? But still sounds good on paper
The weather here is Baltic but so were the tank engines
Furness Railway and GCR fan.
125mph tilt vs 126.5mph duck
Advanced North West Productions.
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Bullhead
LNER Thompson B1 4-6-0 'Antelope'
Posts: 633
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2006 9:40 pm
Location: 52D

Post by Bullhead »

Tom Quayle wrote:Just on that note I am on hotmail and cannot access the site at college without using my hotmail address. This would be 1 problem with this? But still sounds good on paper
You're already registered, so why would there be a problem?
So - did anyone dare tell Stephenson, "It's not Rocket science"?
Tom Quayle
GCR D11 4-4-0 'Improved Director'
Posts: 441
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2005 9:41 am
Location: Barrow in furness Cumbria/HMS Collingwood Fareham
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Post by Tom Quayle »

Sorry miss interprited what you ment great idea them :oops:
The weather here is Baltic but so were the tank engines
Furness Railway and GCR fan.
125mph tilt vs 126.5mph duck
Advanced North West Productions.
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richard
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Post by richard »

There have been spam postings and silent sign-ups since almost the beginning. The graphical-image sign-up was switched on to help combat the robot-signups. That has helped, but it appears that spammers are using cheap labour as well as robots to perform the spamming.

As well as spam for you guys, the tidying-up time adds up for me!

This past week or so has been worse. I'm looking at different options.
Banning hotmail and yahoo wouldn't actually achieve very much. Yes it would stop some of them, but it would also stop a lot of legitimate people. Banning all .ru and .ro email and www addresses would catch a lot more, but it it is a bit broad for my tastes.

Maintaining a phpBB board with the various patches and MODs is difficult enough, so I'm also trying to avoid customising the actual code if I can help it.

Richard
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richard
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Post by richard »

I now have to authorise all new forum members. We'll see how this works...


Richard
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richard
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Post by richard »

Over the past week we've had a number of new members and spammers go through the authorisation system. There a number of pros and cons. The main positive result has been the complete lack of spam postings (previously about half of all spam signups posted spam postings). The main disadvantage is that the "delete spammer" procedure is still as fiddley as before. The only gain is that I don't have to delete the posts.

A minor disadvantage is that new members have to wait until I receive the activation email and act on it. Also some new members choose to use ambiguous emails. I understand why some people have free email addresses, but the use of (apparently) random letters for user ids, or combinations of innocent words that could be construed as names of wannabe porn stars, doesn't help!


Richard
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