Forum registration and nicknames

Steve Hutchesson · December 08, 2009, 12:15:37 PM

I personally agree with people registering with their real name but there is another way around the automated spammer joins, one of our members from the UK did some custom php for the masm forum that has a multiple choice question page that changes every time it loads with no default choice and it takes a human being to get through the entry page, if they get it wrong as a script will do, they get redirected to DisneyLand or the White House, Sesame street etc ....

The second level is to require a greetings post from new membewrs so we can easily see if its a person or a script join. With about a day tolerance if a new member does not post their membership is deleted.

It stopped the massive number of scripted joins dead and all I have to do is delete out the non posting members every couple of days or so.

José Roca · December 08, 2009, 03:29:49 PM

The captcha stops the spam bots. Also, new members are required to activate his account. If you haven't needed to do it, it's because I know you.

Lately, there has been an inordinate amount of, probably hired, Russian spammers.

There is also the problem, that you don't have, of the pirates. If you allow nicknames, there is no way of knowing if he is a licensed user using a nickname or a pirate.

Paul Breen · December 08, 2009, 08:23:38 PM

I always wanted to know why a person would want to run a spambot to join a forum like this.
What can a robo-russky get out of joining this forum? I know it happens; I take your word for it. But how
can you make use of a lot of forums like this? I feel like everybody is laughing and I'm the only guy who does not get the joke.

Steve Hutchesson · December 17, 2009, 10:54:20 AM

Paul,

Its a form of graffiti. Some idiot thinks he has a challenge by scripting and automated join that the admin have to track and they justify it on the basis of improving security. Much the same brain as virus writers, people who believe their own fantasies so they can keep on making a nuisance of themselves.

José Roca · December 17, 2009, 07:24:01 PM

See what is and has been happening to unmoderated Usenet forums such alt.lang.powerbasic and comp.lang.basic.powerbasic: insults, hijacked threads, slandering, revelation of personal data, posting of links to download pirated copies of PB and Firefly...

Eros Olmi · December 18, 2009, 10:36:51 AM

Quote from: Andrea Mariani on December 17, 2009, 02:27:42 PM
Quote from: Patrice Terrier on August 29, 2007, 10:49:21 AM
In a world of real programmers, only REAL name should be used.

I also do not like people using "TU" with me, instead of "VOUS", when it is the first time they get in touch with me.

Vous avez parfaitement raison.

100% Quoted.

Theo Gottwald · December 19, 2009, 01:50:45 PM

I think we have experienced in the original PB-Forums that this is a good idea and we have also gone that way.
Now we are there and I like it.

Mike Stefanik · December 30, 2009, 06:42:31 AM

Quote from: José Roca on December 08, 2009, 03:29:49 PM
Lately, there has been an inordinate amount of, probably hired, Russian spammers.

They're not necessarily hired. What some of the more ridiculously annoying spammers are doing is using people to solve captchas for them. They put up a "free" porn or crack site, and redirect a captcha that they want solved. So, for example, let's say they wanted to create a bunch of accounts on a forum. When someone comes to the spammer's site to download some porn or cracked software, a script connects to the forum of interest and redirects the captcha image to the person trying to download. They solve the captcha and get their file, and the spammer's script can complete the registration. The only way to completely prevent that is to have things set up where the administrator needs to verify and approve each account.

José Roca · December 30, 2009, 03:25:20 PM

Didn't know that trick. However, the ones I was talking about are spammers whose IP can be found in the stop spam lists.

Steve Hutchesson · December 31, 2009, 12:24:54 PM

With fdorum registration "captcha" is a weak system where there are numbers of work arounds. A friend wrote the member join system for the MASM forum which is a set of variable multiple choice questions so scripts do not get through, the next line of defence is the member must post in a short time, roughly a day or they get deleted.

I used to get this jerk Alex at some variation of "lviv" in the domain name doing scripted joins which wasted a lot of time cleaning out the junk but with the new join system it stopped it stone dead.

Theo Gottwald · January 02, 2010, 04:44:25 PM

QuoteWith fdorum registration "captcha" is a weak system where there are numbers of work arounds.

Do you have an OCR that gets around, Steven?
I'd like to see one. :-)

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Forum registration and nicknames