10 replies to this topic

[TimmyD]

I'm sure that the Mods are onto this but I'm just after some reassurance. There has been a fair bit of spam popping up over the last week or so, and I just want to know that it isn't some sort of virus that could get onto my laptop.

My guess however is that it is probably nigerians/scammers peddling sob stories, waiting for someone to show sympathy and then give up their bank details for some fabricated reason. No doubt we will shortly start seeing medical miracles and penis enlargements if we haven't already.

Note to young users: They are fishing for sympathy to exploit, so don't bite. Ignore them. Don't click on any links. They are trying to get you emotional so you are vulnerable to their cons. Ignore them, the stories are false. If you feel compelled to help someone in this shakey world go to kiva.org (my favourite) or another legit outfit and make a donation. Odds are the peddlers of these stories are causing more problems then fixing, so don't help them make things worse.

Mods, maybe some AFL specific security questions on sign up could filter it out a bit? SUch as, 'what month is the grand final in?', 'how many teams in the AFL?', 'What state do the bulldogs come from?' or whatever. Easy enough for true footy fans to tick a couple of boxes, but the extra homework might be enough to push the international scammers to not bother and look for easier targets.

On a happier note, not long to go now!!

[brandon_bombers12]

well writen up mate, good idea on the questions for sign up as well.

[Chiddy]

Was waiting for someone to ask whats going on. Seems like the mods are keeping an eye on it but still an important write up, good work mate.

[Grinners]

Hey guys. I understand it is a little (or a lot) annoying to have all the rubbish spam we are copping at the moment and I am sorry that your DTC experience is getting tainted. I would like to reiterate TimmyD's advice...DO NOT CLICK ANY LINK IN THESE SPAM MESSAGES. The messages alone can do no harm to your computer by way of virus or trojan, etc but we cannot give you any assurance that a posted link would not pose a risk.

Jerry, Geoff and I are doing what we can to delete the messages and ban those posting, but unfortunately that is the best the three of us can do. The admins (Craig and Pickles) are the only ones who can look at changing options and implementing extra security measures at sign-up.

Hopefully the issue will be sorted soon enough, but for now we can only ask for your patience and understanding.

[Koopa]

hahaha

Nigerians/scammers

[Craig]

I think I may have to upgrade the forum software. Generally when it's not fully up to the latest version the spammers seem to creep in.

[sRaf]

I recently had this issue with my own site over the summer.

Managed to completely eradicate the issue by using the stopforumspam.com. Basically on both the registration page and login page you fetch the IP address of the user and pass it to the API. It then checks its database for any records against this IP. Also good to send the email they're registering with since the domains are all similiar. Turns out the majority of spammers for me were all bots from China. When a positive detection is made, I basically return a blank page and a 404 Error to the browser, so they can't register or login.

Since using the API, I've had zero bots register

This explains it well: http://www.stopforumspam.com/usage

I'm not sure how flexible the forum software is or if it allows for scripts to be directly altered, but there might be a module or add-on that uses the API above.

[Geoff]

Yes its been very difficult deleting members who offer me viagra at such a cheap price

But hopefully between the lot of us we can get rid of all the spam before its up there for too long

[Grinners]

Thanks for the tip sRaf. I am sure Craig will look into it once he reads your message.

In the mean time, my new russian wives, Svetlana and Natasha have volunteered to delete what they see posted for us.

[Craig]

Sorry guys, I've been working on AFL Online after getting DTC comp up. It's annoying because I use one anti-spam thing on signup and it doesn't keep the spammers away and the other one is the opposite and even real people struggle to get past it.

Thanks for that Shady, hopefully its not too difficult to install. I think the new version of the forum software has an anti-spam database anyway, I just gotta re-new the code.

[The Bug (Toby)]

Timmy, your security question regarding the Grand Final month is a trick one, considering the previous two years it has been decided in October......