The real WTF is all the spam



  •  Time to get a real spam filter installed?



  • No kidding. I'm getting tired of having 10 canadian pharmacy spam posts show up in my RSS reader twice a day...



  •  I wanted to start on that PHP Script diet, but they never sent me the pills!



  • @Heron said:

    No kidding. I'm getting tired of having 10 canadian pharmacy spam posts show up in my RSS reader twice a day...

    I'm tweaked out on so many freakin' Canadian drugs right now...

    Edit: OMG I just got this email:

    @1-800-PETMEDS said:

    Does your pet have bad breath or drool? It could be serious.

    My cat drools ALL THE TIME! It could be serious!



  • @blakeyrat said:

    0 canadian pharmacy spam posts show up in my RSS reader twice a day.

    Is the lack of adequate filtering due to the FUBAR community server version TDWTF uses?



  • Couldn't Alex just add/require a reCaptcha for posts?



  • @dr spock said:

    Couldn't Alex just add/require a reCaptcha for posts?
    I think it's been mentioned before: no captcha is 100% effective when spammers can just crowdsource to horny teenagers/middle-aged men trying to get to porn.

    Still, it would be better than nothing I guess.



  •  Maybe it would help if we had a captcha for registration of new accounts, though. Right now, you can apparently register accounts with no captchas at all.



  •  Holy hell, the number of spam threads is greater than legit threads on the first page.  



  •  Damn, Canada's sure changed a lot from my last visit...

    So, we have canadian pharmacies, offering cheap drugs, from a website based in Russia.  Nope, nothing odd here...



  • Come on, Alex, make a new post on the main site saying:

    "All you spammers from around the world, trying to use my site to sell your cheap and likely dangerous medicine"

    ---------------------------------------------------

    "Kindly sod off."

    Read Article



  • @Master Chief said:

     So, we have canadian pharmacies, offering cheap drugs, from a website based in Russia.  Nope, nothing odd here...

     

    Not just Russia, but Siberia.  And if I'm not mistaken, not too far from where Star City is supposed to be.



  •  Blame the lazy moderators.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

     Blame the lazy moderators.

    TRWTF (#1) is not having anyone paying attention and cleaning things up in a timely manner.

    TRWTF (#2) is not having basic procedures in place to reduce the creation of bogus account.

     



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Blame the lazy moderators.
    I see after seven months you finally got around the bug that kept you from making your 5600th post.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

     Blame the lazy moderators.

     

    Blasphemy!

    /instaban



  • @El_Heffe said:

    TRWTF (#1) is not having anyone paying attention and cleaning things up in a timely manner.
     

    They come in, dump 52 posts in under 5 minutes and leave. I go to the site once or twice a day. The window of opportunity is quite small.
    Usernames are unique. I might as well not bother banning the accounts.



  • @dhromed said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    TRWTF (#1) is not having anyone paying attention and cleaning things up in a timely manner.
     

    They come in, dump 52 posts in under 5 minutes and leave. I go to the site once or twice a day. The window of opportunity is quite small.
    Usernames are unique. I might as well not bother banning the accounts.

    Also:  All abuse reports go to my primary mailbox, so if you see spam report it.  You don't have to report each thread because I always check for other spam once I get a report.  But I don't have time to read the site anymore so the only way I know there is spam is if someone reports it.

     



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    I don't have time to read the site anymore so the only way I know there is spam is if someone reports it.
    If you don't have time, that's fine.  I can understand that some people have very busy lives.  However, if that's the case then someone else, who does have time, should be given the necessary access.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Also:  All abuse reports go to my primary mailbox, so if you see spam report it.  You don't have to report each thread because I always check for other spam once I get a report.  But I don't have time to read the site anymore so the only way I know there is spam is if someone reports it.

    Add the forum topics to your RSS reader, you'll see the spam as it comes in.

    But I'll keep that in mind, thanks.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    Also:  All abuse reports go to my primary mailbox, so if you see spam report it.  You don't have to report each thread because I always check for other spam once I get a report.  But I don't have time to read the site anymore so the only way I know there is spam is if someone reports it.

    Add the forum topics to your RSS reader, you'll see the spam as it comes in.

    But I'll keep that in mind, thanks.

    I don't have an RSS reader, and I wouldn't have the time to scan it looking for spam.   The abuse reporting mechanism is the best way to guarantee I see spam.

     

    Also, I don't moderate anything but spam or blatant racial slurs (and I only did the latter once, when someone called President Obama the n-word).  Other mods can do what they like, but I don't consider trolling or the like to be "abuse".   So if someone calls you a mean name or hurts your feelings and you report it as abuse, don't be surprised if I don't do jack shit about it.

     



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    I don't have time to read the site anymore so the only way I know there is spam is if someone reports it.
    If you don't have time, that's fine.  I can understand that some people have very busy lives.  However, if that's the case then someone else, who does have time, should be given the necessary access.

    Talk to AmmoQ about that.

     

    I keep planning on writing a bot that runs spamassassin on the emails for all new posts, then flags the obvious spam for quick deletion.  Honestly, deleting 2 dozen spam posts is a PITA.  It's a lot easier for you guys just to report it when you see it and let a mod deal with it.

     



  • @Zecc said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Blame the lazy moderators.
    I see after seven months you finally got around the bug that kept you from making your 5600th post.

    Heh.  It's just that I had a lot of downtime at my previous jobs and TDWTF was a good time-waster.  Now I have more than enough work to keep me busy.

     



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Heh.  It's just that I had a lot of downtime at my previous jobs and TDWTF was a good time-waster.  Now I have more than enough work to keep me busy.
     

    Yet you are here.




  • What worries me is that someone hasn't taken over the site yet due to the obvious security issues. Things like signature guy.



  • @Zecc said:

    no captcha is 100% effective when spammers can just crowdsource to men trying to get to porn.

    FTFY

     



  • I've taken to looking at the members list every so often, spying for new accounts that follow our spammer's naming pattern.

    So far, I've nipped two of them in the bud with 0 posts, and an earlier one with 5 posts. Good results, I think.

     

    What's rather interesting is the amount of dummy spammish accounts that get created almost every 5 minutes. Most of them stay idle; they're not part of this spam-offense we're experiencing currently. I'm not sure what the deal is.



  • @dhromed said:

    What's rather interesting is the amount of dummy spammish accounts that get created almost every 5 minutes. Most of them stay idle; they're not part of this spam-offense we're experiencing currently. I'm not sure what the deal is.

    Maybe they attempt to use PM or "Send email" functions for random members? Though, I don't remember getting any PM spam here and email spam is likely to get filtered anyway.



  • Re: The real WTF is all the spam buyers

    The thing that boggles my mind is that people actually buy this stuff. Somewhere out there are people who are paying money to "Canadian drug companies" in Russia for something that might be medication but is more likely to be whatever crap the manufacturers felt like throwing into the pill making machine that day.

    Here in New Zealand one of the news programs (60 Minutes, I think) bought some "herbal viagra" from a spam email and sent it off to the lab to be tested. The lab results indicated that it was grass clippings and floor sweepings.The reporter made some comment that anyone willing to give money to dodgy drug sellers from some unsolicited email deserved to be eating grass clippings.

    Now if it is you buying from spam then please stop.



  • @dhromed said:

    What's rather interesting is the amount of dummy spammish accounts that get created almost every 5 minutes. Most of them stay idle; they're not part of this spam-offense we're experiencing currently. I'm not sure what the deal is.

    Maybe they belong to the old "let's put spam in our bio" crew? Alex disabled that feature but maybe that didn't occur to the bots yet...



  • What I wonder is what those guys use for the activation emails. Catch-all domains? Botnets? Stolen accounts? Whatever it is, it's probably not GMX.



  • @PSWorx said:

    What I wonder is what those guys use for the activation emails. Catch-all domains? Botnets? Stolen accounts? Whatever it is, it's probably not GMX.

    I saw some addresses using specific throwaway email address domains, such as mytempemail.com.


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