Regarding the spammers on the forum Options

[azrael]

Since the problems with the spammers on the forum are getting worse by the day and we currently cannot change the validation picture script, we have decided to add a second step to the forum registration.

After you registered an account and successfully validated it through the validation email you'll have to wait a little bit longer before an admin manually approves your account. This is inconvenient for both you and us but its necessary at the moment.

[ShinNoir]

cool, I hope things will work out that way. I wonder how you'll be doing the screening of a new member though?

[azrael]

now thats something i'll not share with anyone here for sure
i do have my ways though

[Hitotsu]

The security has improved a bit, since it absolutely had to. The new option for account registration (yes, the "I am a spammer" one) isn't effective since the one registering will always choose "no", and it won't help against automatic registrations : the code images take care of that anyway. All it'll do is annoy spammers a little. But the manual account validation by mods is (supposed to be) great. No user with a name like "freeviagra" or "xxxforyou" will ever get to register. And no spammer would wait for validation to post something that'll get deleted in five minutes anyway.

[Foressense]

The new option for account registration (yes, the "I am a spammer" one) isn't effective since the one registering will always choose "no"

azrael isn't telling anyone about its (true) purpose

And no spammer would wait for validation to post something that'll get deleted in five minutes anyway.

Sure they would. They have no life.

I am ****ing tired of my inbox filling up with reported spam.

No kidding. Since the change, there has been ZERO reports. That means less clicking for you, less killing for me, and less links for SOzuken to visit

[azrael]

The new option for account registration (yes, the "I am a spammer" one) isn't effective since the one registering will always choose "no"

You know that those spammers are no actual ppl but automated scripts, right?

and it won't help against automatic registrations : the code images take care of that anyway

You wish. Those pictures are basically worthless as the spambots have functions to parse those images and "extract" the displayed numbers from it.

[Hitotsu]

You wish. Those pictures are basically worthless as the spambots have functions to parse those images and "extract" the displayed numbers from it.

Okay, a life to live, a life to learn. I was blindly convinced that just because they're images they can only be deciphered by humans. Perhaps it's possible for a script to read them because there are only 10 images of digits. How about adding those scrambled images where it's hard (even for a human) to recognize a letter/digit code between random lines. And on top of that, it's case sensitive, how about that?

[azrael]

How about adding those scrambled images where it's hard (even for a human) to recognize a letter/digit code between random lines. And on top of that, it's case sensitive, how about that?

I'd love that. I even got a modified version of the script to create those pics so the created pics would be even more random and harder to recognize a letter/digit even for humans. For that to work I'd need to recompile PHP with the needed libraries. Sadly I don't have SSH access to the server and the person who has is 1. MIA, 2. busy, 3. ???, 4. profit! ... >.>

[lefritz]

I'm idling... I'm just 1-3 (definately not 4...). Or rather, at home with no internet for 99% of the time. I did give SSH to SOz so don't just look at me. I'm sure I did compile with GD2. But maybe I'm wrong...

[Fuzien]

i think maybe ask a question about school rumble at register form. it may be work.

[AngelsThesis]

ya know... that aint a bad idea @ all haha

[Foressense]

The idea seems nice but it's highly unlikely to pass. While this forum is School Rumble flavoured, it isn't all about SR and we have to respect that not everyone registers to talk about SR. Maybe they just want to know what other flavours we might see here in the future...

[azrael]

a decision has been made. in the next few days i'll implement a special check-mechanism that will get rid of all the spammers (and users that are too stupid to read, but thats not our problem). already registered members wont be affected by this at all.
it will be a test-run first but if it works it might stay forever.

registrations will be "user validation" only again, no more "admin validation". less work! yay!

[AngelsThesis]

wait so were actually having it easier again so members can make alt. accounts without much trouble again???

hmm.. ill cheer to that

BANZAI!!

[homeless_homo]

a decision has been made. in the next few days i'll implement a special check-mechanism that will get rid of all the spammers (and users that are too stupid to read, but thats not our problem). already registered members wont be affected by this at all.
it will be a test-run first but if it works it might stay forever.

registrations will be "user validation" only again, no more "admin validation". less work! yay!

I feel like making a new account just to test out this "special check mechanism"

[TMSIDR]

Wow, I always thought our company forum (it's also for our partners [I'm working at a software company]) was the only victim of spam accounts . I have to manually delete every day 5-10 accounts, so I really have sympathy for your spam account problems . But sometimes the account names are at least a little bit funny and the bot seems to have some spelling issues . By the way our forum also needs a manual activation after the registration.

[azrael]

Wow, I always thought our company forum (it's also for our partners [I'm working at a software company])

I'm willing to sell you my solution for an appropriate price

[GameFreak619]

a decision has been made. in the next few days i'll implement a special check-mechanism that will get rid of all the spammers (and users that are too stupid to read, but thats not our problem). already registered members wont be affected by this at all.
it will be a test-run first but if it works it might stay forever.

registrations will be "user validation" only again, no more "admin validation". less work! yay!

Well at least there will be no more perverted idiot spammers lurking around huh

I have a question........ What if the 'Human' is the one to register the account and then uses the bot?
Do you manually delete them? (That's gotta be a painful job )

[TMSIDR]

I'm willing to sell you my solution for an appropriate price

ehm, too bad we're using phpbb, so probably some mad converting skills have to be applied to make "this solution" work in our company forum . Ah, I think I will delete spam accounts for the rest of life, at least since this news item I don't feel so alone anymore .