Last two days the bad boys have been trying to get a foot into PC. Suggest all users turn up the volume on their security and practices in case one gets past our Mods.
I assume you mean by spam that there has been inappropriate postings in threads. I really don't read that many threads when I visit, so I have either missed it or it has been cleaned up before I arrived. Probably true for a number of us, so I am sure I was not the only one wondering what was going on. At any rate, good job to the moderators if that is indeed what is happening.
Oh you'll know.... when you see 150 new threads with mumbo jumbo (or in the case of the last two days, they were in mandarin, claiming to promote universities around the world) @frodoz737 , thanks for the shout out; just part of my duties here. The other mods have been helping out too (I've notified them).
I might as well also throw my name out as a moderator candidate if the need arises. I've been doing that (as a mod. and an admin.) at a couple other forums running various forum softwares + spam fighting controls for, oh, some 14 years now. Hate to see the mess we have been in here the last few days. Sometimes it takes taking the forum registration off of auto and switch it to manual approval for a time until the storm runs its course. Time consuming and tedious for those running things, but if a forum is unusable because of an onslaught, well, that's what it takes sometimes. Every one of those spammers was already on SFS at the time. Any anti-spamming filtering being done in real time? Askimet maybe?
Thanks David! There are but I guess this is a new set. Some have been stopped (ended up in moderation instead of actually being posted) but usually it's just one or two at a time. It just looks massive because each of them post 136 messages. So two of them would make you guys see 274 messages and it seems like the world is ending.
Yup, been there and have stayed up all night many times actually needing to turn a forum OFF and scrubbing the crap out of a forum after a bad spam bot episode before carefully turning it back in manual approval mode and crossing my fingers. Luckily these kinda attacks seem to be infrequent, yet memorable. Automated spam fighting software and filters are far from complete. CAPTCHA, even the better newer versions of playing the match-up game, are all but worthless, but I sure wouldn't want to remove that layer! I frequently hit the New Posts link, just to keep an eye on the previous hour's activity, and looking up new usernames with google as " 'username' + forum posts" are enlightening. Always enjoyable to see the same weird post verbatim on 7 other forums in the previous day. Don't know if you have it here, but the checkbox in Admin tools for users, besides BAN, is the Remove all posts? Love that one when needed!
