Spammers

[davidb]

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The spammers are becoming a real pain, will have to find a solution soon before they ruin this forum!
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[Derek W]

just been deleting and am not sure on improvements

Is there anyway of setting the forum to block on-line registration? and then prepopulate it with members email addresses and an intro password.

cheers

d

[John]

I've been getting rid of them all weekend!

Does phpbb allow an invitation only registration?

EDIT

It seems others would like this too:

Link.

[davidb]

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I shall email Steve tonight to see if he will update us to version 3 unless anyone knows of a reason not to.

and I shall follow the phbb users forum thread,

thank you John
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[Derek W]

might be an idea to do banning user names, IP and email rather than deleting. some of the ones deleted this afternooon were that same names as this morning

d

[John]

I've been banning IP addresses of dodgy posters, as well as deleting the user name.

[Derek W]

Do need to be careful banning IP and I should have mentioned this earlier. IP addresses are not always given to the same person, especially in the case of customers of large ISPs

LareEagermham @ 80.40.145.34 this IP address is one of tiscalis and is likely to change to someone else regularly you can check who owns the address by doing a whois here

http://www.db.ripe.net/whois

this one of a batch of 500,000 addresses and could potentially (tho unlikely) be one of our members

I also did a check on the email rorohoabegela@mymail-in.net both by typing the last bit "mymail-in.net" into a browser, its a russian site or something and also into google, doing the latter netted me this

http://kibo.org.uk/addresses-worth-bann ... our-forum/

Seen a lot of these before so will have a go a typing them in if you approve?

cheers
d

[davidb]

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I just looked at the ip address of largeigerman ( have just banned name and deleted him after - it won't work the other way round )
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just look at the post below this one , then click "ip" top right, then click on:
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"Users posting from this IP address" then "search"
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is that a virus or a worm on his computer do you think?
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D

[Derek W]

I think someone else could well be controlling PCs with Viruses, I think we should try blocking mail domains mentioned in the my previous mail, they need this to confirm on registration I think.

what do you think?

d

[John]

It's not that likely that blocking an IP address would affect another of our members. If it did that person would no doubt complain and we could unblock it. It seems a lot of hassle going down the whois route.

[Derek W]

ways of reducing the spam problem

take a look at these;
http://kibo.org.uk/addresses-worth-bann ... our-forum/
http://www.forumblacklist.com/blacklist.htm

I am currently getting the first list in a format to go into the email domain ban list. The second url also has a non-verified IP ban list which we can use if the first one is not effective enough.

Let me know if you do not want me to go ahead with this, I have no way of validating any of them! the email address list will blanket ban anyone with an email address from

• Russia
  China
  Ukraine
  Samoa
  Micronesia (Federated States of)

The other email addresses are pretty much all domains I have either seen or never seen in action so I am happy to give them a go. I will post the email ban list when it is ready to cut and paste into the ban control.


thoughts please

d

[John]

Definitely worth a try!

[Derek W]

Going to send to John and David copy of the ban list from here.

http://kibo.org.uk/addresses-worth-bann ... our-forum/

comments or request for a copy please by PM and I will email it to you

cheers

d

[Derek W]

pls let me know if anyone gets any issues! the list we are using is here

http://www.forumblacklist.com/blacklist.htm

cheers
d

[Derek W]

there is a feature in the general configuration page

"Enable account activation" none (current setting), user (user gets sent an email) or admin (where admins approve the email before the user gets access)

http://www.phpbb.com/support/documentat ... ction3_2_2

This means if I understand it correctly that once somebody registers, their names appear on the bottom of the forum page but they cannot post until activated by a forum admin. This would be a help insomuch as these users cannot post. The issue with this is it takes longer for us to verify a user and they would not be able to post straight away.

There are also add-ons to phpbb that allow you ban with greater control, at the moment we cannot actually do the ban *@*.ru which would ban all email addresses from Russia from registering.

This needs access to the server files and I think before we consider it doing it a number of admins who could deal with it if it went wrong

thoughts?

d

[John]

It might be a help, but phpbb users suggest it won't stop unwanted registrations, just unwanted posts.

[Derek W]

i read the phpbb thing, agreed it is not the best solution, I *think* we would get notified. of registrations then which is better than having to come to look just for a bit of pruning. Shall we have a go with it?

I think even the user registration thing would be an improvement at the moment they only have to register to post

I have also found another email blacklist that is maintained, think I will try this as well, everyone happy for me to just go ahead?

cheers
d

[John]

OK by me to both.

Dave?

[davidb]

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yes please, both. I havnt been on for 3 days and its nice to see no foreigners lurking
=
cheers, D
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[Derek W]

ok going to do the verification thing which means admins are going to need to login regularly to approve users, who can do this? John, David and Me? anyone else and who should we tell?

d

[davidb]

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I can alter the glassonsc home page when the mod is is place. The only other thing to do would be to ask Mike to circulate it on his list which I think still has more people on it than this forum.
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He was looking for someone to take over his list management, but a fortnight ago he said no one had volunteered
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David
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[davidb]

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Alison is a moderator
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I think John Rushton ( Nimrod ) is an admin as well
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[Michael]

Gosh I'd no idea that you are all being put to so much trouble to make the forum good for us all.

Serious work not understood and valued by some members.

Thanks very much indeed, love, Michael

[davidb]

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I am wondering about banning gmail.com applicatios, would this affect existing gmail members, I wonder?
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[Derek W]

it probably would gmail is a popular email address.

Had thought we could maybe get a member to put their membership number or boat name in the registration?

what do think