Avast WEBforum
Other => General Topics => Topic started by: polonus on October 04, 2006, 09:20:51 PM
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Hi malware fighters,
If some of you have been online regularly you might have noticed this webforum has been sought out lately for various ways of spamming. Not the off-topic link to the forist's own site or info related to the subject of this forum, no clearly identifiable malicious ordinary spam. First we had a spammer for internet gambling, now for a certain medication. As we notify the moderators, they take the messages out, but it is annoying, and we are in need of a bouncer to keep this out. If avast can keep malware at bay, it should also rid its own webforum of spam. There must be some sort of filter.
Anyway anyone that sees this happining on the avast webforum, immediately report this.
polonus
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Heh, I don't think I've ever seen antispam for forums (I watch only SMF closely, though).
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Hej kubecj,
Anyway the phenomenon has arrived, and there could be a filter for the links the spammers put up for the clicking, they must appear on various blacklists. As we educate our users not to give live links to malware. The moment we the serious members of this avast family see spam we should report these incidents right away to the moderators. And a compliment to you, it was taken out very quickly.
polonus
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Right now I don't know of any better solution than to click 'report to moderator'...
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The Comodo forums are experiencing a lot of spammers as well, I am banning at least 1 person a week there because of spam :o. I think that the spammers are targeting popular forums, and since avast! and Comodo fit that, then that would explain some of the spamming.
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Hi kubecj and justin1279,
There is forum software that has this feature: http://www.jovo.be/forum/index.php?action=manual
There is a short interval before posting in a thread to do this spam scanning.
polonus
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Hi,
Comodo has already taken care of this, they have set a limit that users can make 1 post every 90 seconds since Comodo is constantly targeted by spam, this gives myself and the other mods/admins to delete the post and ban the user.
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There is forum software that has this feature: http://www.jovo.be/forum/index.php?action=manual
There is a short interval before posting in a thread to do this spam scanning.
Seems that's just limit of posts in a timeframe. Since the 'attacks' here are isolated, ie. dork registers, posts a message or two and then disappears, it wouldn't work here.
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Besides that, some of us spend a lot of time monitoring this forum and hit that little button as soon as one of
those "magical" posts appears..... (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v190/bob3160/Icons/BewareSpam.gif)
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Well, one way is to ignore a spammers post. I know that I have asked several spammers that have posted to stop and why. It doesn't do any good for me to say anything to the spammer. I will in the future just ignore any spam post and go about doing something else. :)
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Well, one way is to ignore a spammers post. I know that I have asked several spammers that have posted to stop and why. It doesn't do any good for me to say anything to the spammer. I will in the future just ignore any spam post and go about doing something else. :)
This may be because some if not most of the spammers are usually bots.
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Hi justin1278,
Yes and because these spambots do not play by the rules, as do some other searchbots for instance the normal webbased methods to make them "no foillow" do not stop them. Anyways in the recent cases you think the registration on the forums also was done automattically. Like to see a bot sign up for a forum account, if "they" come away with that it gives rise to a lot of misuse. How do you copy?
polonus
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Well the recent spate of Spam has been placed by registered users, if they are creating the account manually in which case there is less we can do to combat this.
If it is a spam bot that can also automatically register, then surely the forum registration can do the same as the avast registration, have a registration image with numbers/letters that have to be interpreted and or, send an email to the registered email address. This email address is likely to be a fake so they don't get an email to complete the registration by pasting the registration into the relevant section or clicking on a link to activate their forum registration.
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I think David has the right idea about this.
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Well CharleyO,
I have a different vieuw on these cases of "spim". I think they were manually put there. Normal folks and webforum users cannot imagine what a bunch of negative oriented people are our out there, that finds joy in putting spam out just to irritate, troll postings just to spoil the pleasure of others, doings things for reasons of jealousy or plain simple because they cammot stand a nice atmosphere. There are political postings, there are trolls because someone said negative things about a program they perceive rightly or falsely, a lot of people cannot handle their emotions rightly anymore, and we have a lot of that going around even on the Internet lately.
The full right and actually the job and obligation of the moderators or administration of the webforum site is to take these messages or whole threads out at once to sanitize the forum. This should be done anonimously, without explanation, "spim", "trolling", non-related material, do not fit in. Of course there must be room for wishing well, a joke, some humour, or signs of appreciation or critique, that is natural to the process of communication, but otherwise everything should be clear,
polonus
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Well, adding an additional step to the registration process, especially the sending of a registration activation link by email would at least slow things down and possibly deter some. Especially when they have to give a live email address (which can be traced) otherwise they can't complete the registration and can't post. I know that they could use hotmail, etc. to get throwaway addresses but it adds a little more hassle and effort for a few spams before the registration is killed.
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Well, adding an additional step to the registration process, especially the sending of a registration activation link by email would at least slow things down and possibly deter some.
This is the preferred method used by most forums and if your serious about joining a forum, isn't a deterrent.
If your intention is to post a lot of garbage in a lot of places, this would definitely be a deterrent.
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Hi forum members,
How could I know that my words would be that prophetic: "I think they were manually put there. Normal folks and webforum users cannot imagine what a bunch of negative oriented people are our out there, that finds joy in putting spam out just to irritate, troll postings just to spoil the pleasure of others, doings things for reasons of jealousy or plain simple because they cannot stand a nice atmosphere."
To-day was another sad day for this valuable forum, and all the positive forces here have lost out (our PM possibilities).
Cannot we get back as sort of compensation our off-topic for the loss of all our PMs, lest it be under some strict new rules and condictions of all threads being taken out at once in case of any slight flaming or trolling. It could give off a signal that most of us have a positive view here, and apart from two sick minds we have a healthy avast community that has the computer-users' best interest at heart. That is what this forum is all about, isn't it?
Let end this day on a positive turn, please,
polonus
aka Damian
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Yea, I got a spam email from a JessicaA claiming to be admin yesterday aswell, basically saw right threw it as soon as it was delivered, as i never get emails from avast, so i knew something was up.
Not as pissed off as some here are, its only some spam, aint like its the end of the world, however i am glad that I received an email from the REAL admins stating that they were sorry and had now patched up the problem, not many websites would send an email saying sorry for spam being delivered to your email addy via there pm system.
Good to know that avast peeps have put a stop to it ;)
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You are tight, E-S ... most would not send out an email apology. So, I would also like to thanks the admins for doing this. It is one of the things we love about this forum ... the awil team has integrity to do the right thing.
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