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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    7,381

    Default Spammers

    Anyone know how to block specific IP blocks from this forum? Most of this louis vitton and nfl jerseys spam is coming from a common IP block in China.

    This forum software is ages old and I've gotten zero response from "webmaster". - GA

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Houston-ish
    Posts
    932

    Default

    http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum...k-or-ban-an-ip

    Try that. Been a while since I've messed with vBulletin- I use SMF on my own sites now. What about doing some 'human interaction test' to require an intelligent response to a question while registering. not just the little graphic "what is this word" crap that nobody can read- I hate those.
    something like the prod site or another similar thing that requires a very small amount of common sense to enter the answer.
    Houston Region
    STU Nissan 240SX
    EProd RX7

  3. #3
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    Mar 2001
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    Connecticut
    Posts
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    Default

    Doesn't look like I have the access...

  4. #4
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    Jan 2010
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    Houston-ish
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    932

    Default

    Don't know what level of access you have here- usually that requires 'super-mod' or site admin access for vBulletin.

    Of the VB forums I'm a moderator on, I can ban a single IP address, but I don't think I can ban a range of them. I always left that up to the other guys that were more aggressive in dealing with spam and spent my time dealing with rude people that needed a spanking.
    Houston Region
    STU Nissan 240SX
    EProd RX7

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
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    Connecticut
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    Default

    And I have to say, I find it seriously perplexing that when I got to delete these threads, with titles like "luis vitton hanbags and a free nfl jersey", in a forum about motorsports, that some of them have 6, 7 views.

    Why?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Location
    New Jersey
    Posts
    521

    Default

    Greg

    Apparently online shopping was more pervasive than we thought

    T

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Colchester, CT, USA
    Posts
    2,120

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Greg Amy View Post
    And I have to say, I find it seriously perplexing that when I got to delete these threads, with titles like "luis vitton hanbags and a free nfl jersey", in a forum about motorsports, that some of them have 6, 7 views.

    Why?
    I'm always hoping to find porn............
    Jeff L

    ITA Miata



    2010 NARRC Champion

    2007 NERRC Championship, 2nd place
    2008 NARRC Championship, 2nd place
    2009 NARRC Championship, 2nd place

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Weare, NH
    Posts
    483

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Matt93SE View Post
    ...not just the little graphic "what is this word" crap that nobody can read- I hate those.
    ...
    I heard an interview last weekend with the guy who invented the "captcha"

    He was a bit embarrassed about it, knowing that everyday 200 million captchas are filled out worldwide, and at 10 seconds each that represents 500,000 hours wasted productivity EACH DAY

    Glenn Lawton
    GSMmotorsports
    #14 ITS RX7
    NARRC ITS Champion 2012
    NERRC ITS Champion 2013 12 11 10 09 08
    NERRC STU Champion 2010

    __________________

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Mount Juliet, TN
    Posts
    154

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by lawtonglenn View Post
    I heard an interview last weekend with the guy who invented the "captcha"

    He was a bit embarrassed about it, knowing that everyday 200 million captchas are filled out worldwide, and at 10 seconds each that represents 500,000 hours wasted productivity EACH DAY
    The really fascinating part of that interview was what he decided to do after he calculated how many man hours were involved. He developed a way to use the captchas to translate books from English to another language, so every time we type in a captcha, we are translating a small part of a book. His response to the question of how long would it take to translate all of Wikipedia was about 80 hours.
    David Plott
    Atlanta Region #289721
    #54 1973 Datsun 240Z
    Mount Juliet, TN

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    Connecticut
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    Default

    They also use Captcha to "translate" OCR'd (scanned) books where the words are not legible to the computer. So each time we do one of those we're actually typing in all the characters to some old book/manuscript (that's why we see such oddball words/characters show up). - GA

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Location
    New Jersey
    Posts
    521

    Default

    Just think how many books Louis Vuitton has translated all by himself

    T

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    Connecticut
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    Default

    WTF?? Today I woke up to dozens of spam on the board. I'm really getting tired of dealing with this.

    In order to perform upgrades and gain more administrative access, I've been offered the opportunity to take over this board. But I'm not going to do it on my own dime. If there's interest here to do this, I'd entertain thoughts about creating a PayPal account and making this a community-supported board. For example, upgrading the software is about $250, and we'd have to pay for domain registration/transfer, as well as web server space to host it. I'm guessing we're looking at ~$1000/year plus upgrades. Otherwise I'm on the edge of just letting this go as is and you'll just have to deal with the increasing amounts of spam.

    Let me hear your thoughts.

    - GA

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 2001
    Location
    New York, NY, USA
    Posts
    451

    Default

    Greg,

    I would gladly support you taking over what Suloff started so long ago. I also like the voluntary self-assessment for $. You may want to contact Richard Welty to assist in setting all this up. I bellieve he has done this for other forums.

    DZ

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Northeast
    Posts
    7,031

    Default

    We can't just add one more 'are you human' step to the registration or is that the software upgrade that is needed?
    Andy Bettencourt
    New England Region 188967

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    7,381

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy Bettencourt View Post
    We can't just add one more 'are you human' step to the registration or is that the software upgrade that is needed?
    Not without taking full control. We don't have that level of admin and current owner has no interest in investing any time or money into the forum. - GA

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    Rockville, MD
    Posts
    42

    Default

    Greg, I'll donate $100.00 to the cause. This forum is worth it for me.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Earth
    Posts
    743

    Default

    Start the paypal account, I'm already sending $100 to each of half dozen other forums. What's one more? Then you're down to needing $900.
    Ed Funk
    NER ITA CRX, ITB Civic, ITC CRX (wanna buy a Honda?)
    Smart as a horse, hung like Einstein!

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    7,381

    Default

    Good news/bad news.

    Good news: Mr IT.COM and I have exchanged some emails, and on my request he has disabled new user registrations on the forum. We were getting around two dozen new accounts per day, all spammers. This will allow us to catch up with all the pending accounts that are coming back soon to spam, and eventually get ahead.

    Further, he is going to investigate existing anti-spam options on the current version of the VBulletin software.

    Bad news: Mr IT.COM has disabled all new user registrations. Not optimal, but maybe we'll re-enable when we get a handle on those anti-spam options.

    News to follow as I get it.

    - GA

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Sunnyside, NY
    Posts
    1,197

    Default

    thanks tGA
    Demetrius Mossaidis aka 'Mickey' #12 ITA NESCCA
    '92 Honda Civic Si
    STFU and "Then write a letter. www.crbscca.com"
    2013 ITA NARRC Champion and I have not raced since.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Fredericksburg, VA
    Posts
    1,191

    Default

    Is there any way to ban members in mass? Just doing a search of members who have joined since 11/1 gives about 130 results; most of those have zero posts. Going back to 9/1 takes it to 1k+ members, again mostly non-posting. Some appear to be legit, but many appear to be computer generated. Too many to ban one at a time for sure.
    Earl R.
    240SX
    ITA/ST5

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