GHQ Models Forums

Just voicing my concern about all the spam. I have been on this forum for almost two years ago. It was just in the last few months that the spam has starting showing up. know for one that, i have not posted on here as much due to the spaming. I would think that as a well known and moderately wealthy company. You could hire a IT support. Please do something about the spam. It has taken from the enjoyment of reading the forums here.

FMJ

They probably need their host to install a mod to stop the bots. Here's one such mod:

http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=375262

That MOD sounds like it would work - it hides the URL field on the registry page but still captures it for any spambot that enters one and kills them. This would probably do the trick until the spammers figure out how to get around it. This is so like warfare with these guys, and right now we need some good countermeasures.

There is also the possibility of GHQ promoting a few forum folks to give them the power to manually delete these posts. This can lead to other issues though.

There are some things they can do without software updates.
(I've been too busy to update my forum to a more spam proof version too.) But they can lock out certain names like "buy" "** CENSORED **" or other clue user names. And maybe they can lock out some email sites like "mail.ru" or "web.de" or login names that begin "login--".

Every day I go through both my forums looking for suspicious names. I have two different forums on widely different subjects and when I see the same name as a new user registering the same day I know its a phoney user.

I am by no means a prude, but GHQ, you REALLY need to do something about these spammers. Like most everyone else, I joined this forum because I enjoy your products. I have for 30 years. We have had a really great group of people on the forum, and I have learned a lot from them. I wouldn't want to lose any members over this unwanted garbage. PLEASE DO SOMETHING!

Gary (aka: ShortRound70)

Disallow new members for a few days. At a certain level of spam it is better to keep the old members than to try to gain one more among a bizzard of phoney members.

Why can't the administrator of this forum force new registrants, when they register for a login have to decode an image like Yahoo Groups? The image has letters and numbers in it that you must duplicate in order to register. This would take away the bot factor and force humans to actually type characters. Of course if actual people register you can not get rid of the spam other than deleting their posts and their account. And the battle continues.

Brian

The spam is bypassing that "enter the code in the picture" thing. I have phpBB for my forum too and I use this type of check and still got spammed. However, it is as east as the site admin hitting delete on a post to get rid of it though.

If it is real humans registering then the appropriate response is to make them waste their time.
I think disabling sending a new user password response for a few days and then restoring intermittently would dissuade actual people as they wouldn't know when the registration was working and when it wasn't.
I'm trying this now with one of my sites.

Gentlemen,

** CENSORED ** on a reference site that is used by business and government can not be tolerated. While it may seem funny or trivial, it is not.

Until some kind of solution is found to prevent this unwanted intrusion we can no longer participate or provide this forum as reference material for governmental or related business functions.

Thank you for your support in the past.

Respectfully,

Will
ComOpsCtr, LLC
www.commandoperationscenter.com

Gentlemen:

It seems that GHQ does listen to us on this forum. I don't see the nightly garbage laying about. I'm certain that it will show up again, but maybe the GHQ forum police will become more active now. If nothing else, they do have a good name and reputation to protect. I stand by my earlier post.

I am by no means a prude, but GHQ, you REALLY need to do something about these spammers. Like most everyone else, I joined this forum because I enjoy your products. I have for 30 years. We have had a really great group of people on the forum, and I have learned a lot from them. I wouldn't want to lose any members over this unwanted garbage. PLEASE DO SOMETHING!

Thank you for listening, GHQ.

Will, maybe you can come back to the forum soon. I've really enjoyed your posts about modern warfare, training, and gaming. You've been a great help.

Semper Fi!

Gary (ShortRound70)