Smiting board spam

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

I have a great suggestion on dealing with this board spamming nonsense, Lamuness. Unfortunately I don’t know who maintains the BBS or if it would be possible. (More than likely it is if you have the source to the BBS program, but actually making the changes would probably suck.)

Would you be able to set up a quick add-in to the posting script to automatically delete/filter/mark/what have you posts from

a) brand new accounts (first post only) that

b) start a new thread

c) containing a URL in the message text – regardless where the URL points

So if your very first post is a new thread containing a link, any link, doesn’t matter what it is – it’s assumed to be spam and struck down. I think this would quash all of the board spams I’ve seen, unless enough other people started using the technique that the spammers picked up on it. And it’s very unlikely to catch any legitimate first-time users.

This would work because as far as I know, most board spam attempts are automated. Someone manually attempting to post this crap would probably be able to do it anyway, but the majority of board spam attempts are going to come from the automated spammers (because they’re automated, so they can spew out more).

(I would recommend not also scanning signatures, since that is not only probably harder, but more likely to result in a false positive.)

#2

How certain are you that this would woprk ?

What would happen if the person was a very legitimate user whose first post had a link, but gave an entirely long,v erbose article about something like, say, Tolkien, in the interest of making a visual novel out of the Lord of the Rings ?

Then again, that’s somethig I might do.

I’d be incline that the filters should include removing the words l337 and n00b and w00t… but that’s also taking it a bit too far.

#3

Well, this is unlikely.

  • Most people’s first post is a reply to another thread, rather than starting their own.

  • Most people’s first post is relatively short, some form of “hi my name is <> and you <suck / kick ass>”

  • Even if this did happen, it’d be easily circumventable by simply making a short post before the long post.

I suppose stripping the URLs might work better than blackholing the post.

#4

You got a point there, though I’d add that a FAQ should be made available for first-time posters to notice this fact.

#5

it will be quite annoying for me but it seems that this bbs allows me, as admin, to decide/approve new account registration before they can make posts for real…

i was hoping that this bbs has some sort of feature that blogs have: limit the max of links per post…but that will mean 99% of baldo’s posts will be banned :stuck_out_tongue:

#6

Oooohh, me and the creator of this BBS share the same tastes, how nice :smiley: :stuck_out_tongue: .
The Links are the lifeblood of any Internet page, you can’t negate this only for preventing Spammer intrusion :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: ?

#7

It looks as if we may have another spammer join us today by the name of “cheeeeeese” because he sure has chosen a interisting home page as his home page, but it may be just me.

#8

which i just deleted :stuck_out_tongue:

it seems like these are automated though

i guess i will activate the registration queue as mentioned above

#9

yay we have another one all ready named “SindySexy”

they are getting more frequent are they not?

#10

They are frequent…aren’t they?..

#11

A lot of people’s first post is also asking a question.

But mine in forums usually is making a new thread, about something that isn’t a question, and its usually quite long.

#12

they are rolling in, we have another one “NiceAsGirl” we have gotten quite popular as a spam target.

#13

Geee… :stuck_out_tongue:
:roll:

#14

I think that spammers try to use the loopholes. :roll:

#15

Spammers pay other spammers for “hot leads”. In the same way a list of address known to be in use is worth more than a list of untested addresses, the location of a BBS where you successfully post spam (even if it’s gone awhile later) is worth more than a generic BBS.

The problem will only continue to get worse over time. Realistically, since they’ve found us, they’re simply going to continue to ramp up. We are going to have to take more sophisticated countermeasures sooner or later.

#16

There are a few ways, but ATM they are to severe for the amount, like killing a fly with a hand gernade. However, Nandemonai is right. It could grow over time.

However, the lists he talks about also prioritize spam that’s deleted and not because its pretty easy now to go to almost any board and post a message. How quickly those messages disappear, if they do, also factors in.

#17