Help with spam

zimmerframe · Jul 18, 2007, 12:43:03

Slightly off topic but cry for help.

My gaming clans website public forums are being plaged by unwanted spam messages. These are very offensive in nature, ( not to us but in their content) not what we want to have in a public forum which young poeple may also read.

We police these things and delete them very quickly but hey are becoming a real nuisance. Is there anything available to filter this unwanted, offensive rubbish out? Our site uses php nuke I believe.

Rik · Jul 18, 2007, 12:46:35

I've given you a new thread to make your message more visible. Hopefully, someone will offer you advice soon, but you may also want to post over on ThinkBroadband, where they do have a spam problem, and may be able to offer you some practical advice.

zimmerframe · Jul 18, 2007, 12:49:38

Thanks Rik, much obliged, I'll take a look there too. Some of it is quite nasty. We may even consider shutting down our public forum for a while in the hope it stops.

Rik · Jul 18, 2007, 12:52:24

I'm curious what attracts the spammers. So far, we've got away with it here despite being crawled over regularly and in large number. Maybe they can recognise grumpy old men.

DorsetBoy · Jul 18, 2007, 13:41:59

If you have access to the admin panel in PHPBB you can block entire IP ranges as well as email addresses and user names.
Set the forum so that guests can read but not post,this means you can ban users by name IP and email.The best method is to set the board so that any one registering has to be authorised by the admin.Basically no one gets in unless approved,spammers just don't bother then.

If you can FTP and load mods there are several other things you could do,the restrict guest access mod stops non members accessing member details and there is an IP log mod which gathers deatailed info on users .
Post on the PHPBB community forum and I am sure you will get the long "spammers list" to add to banned addresses.

PHPBB3 is not far off and that has lots more to offer for security.

This is your best source of info.......... PHPBBSUPPORT

The documentation links are very useful.

DorsetBoy · Jul 18, 2007, 13:47:51

Quote from: Rik on Jul 18, 2007, 12:52:24
I'm curious what attracts the spammers. So far, we've got away with it here despite being crawled over regularly and in large number. Maybe they can recognise grumpy old men.

They will come eventually Rik,most don't like registration but the sickos that Zimmerframe is seeing delight in finding boards where children could be present and posting the most evil stuff out there,it's not just porn this stuff is way beyond that.

One of the lady members at the host I use had her site filled with it ,she was totally distraught,we are talking the most vile stuff imaginable

RobMc · Jul 18, 2007, 13:55:07

Just to add a couple of things...

Make sure that you don't allow anonymous posting, that's far too easy for spammers.

If it has become such an issue, as it seems to have, then add a captcha image when posting (assuming your forum will support this). This should stop robot posting using a registered username. Captchas are a pain but sometimes spam is more of a pain.

Rob.

Edit. Just a thought, perhaps this would be better in the "General Computer Discussion" as it's not really an IDNet Improvement issue.

DorsetBoy · Jul 18, 2007, 14:06:38

Most of the PHPBB boards have visual authentication ,mine are a simple equation, and if it is not there it can added as a mod.

I got lost as well Rob

Lance · Jul 18, 2007, 14:08:18

Thread moved!

DorsetBoy · Jul 18, 2007, 14:50:30

Zimmer......if you want it I have a list that you can copy and paste into the forum ban list,it contains over 1000 email addys of active spammers.

zimmerframe · Jul 18, 2007, 21:25:48

Thanks for the advice all. I have posted a link to this discussion on our forums so that our admin guys can have a look. I'll let you know if we would like that blocked list too.

Thanks again folks.