Fuc#ing Spam!

BlackJacket

Well-known member
Is there really no way for Xenforo Devs to come up with something to slow down the amount of spam xF gets? Geez, its getting ridiculous.

Take 10 minutes to address this issue please.
 
Second the motion. Stupid amounts of spam lately. I know they like to use the spam cleanup tool, but you'd think they'd rather stop it from happening in the first place.
 
Is it really recaptcha that fails so often or is this site manually attacked by 'spammers', perhaps to make it look bad?

Either way, maybe assign a dedicated spam mod.
 
My communities are spam heavens however I added some simple Q/A's to help deter them. I rarely get spam now. The humans behind them cant Google the answer but the people interested in my communities would know.
 
I suggested it a little while back.

We need a few trusted people to have access to the spam filter option. Not suggesting more staff moderators. Just a few more people who can easily nuke the spammers.
 
Is it really recaptcha that fails so often or is this site manually attacked by 'spammers', perhaps to make it look bad?
Recaptcha is stopping more humans than bots. I tried it a year or two ago during a big attack, and it didn't even slow them down.
 
Recaptcha is stopping more humans than bots. I tried it a year or two ago during a big attack, and it didn't even slow them down.

I agree. ReCaptcha is useless. I like the image captchas and others that require selecting different items. They are pretty much bot resistant (for now).
 
I have to disagree... I wouldnt say ReCaptcha is useless

Right now, ReCaptcha is rendered useless.. but it had been top of it's game until it was beaten (it is however a silly game in my opinion)

Google have a fair amount of cash to develop it and make changes, and they do frequently (which is one of the things that made it hard to beat, the continuous changes)
They provide it freely, and it's used more than 100 million times every day

You can train an Artificial Neural Network (or OCR) against a set, but if you keep changing the data set, you create a moving target which is incredibly hard to pin down
This is one of the things that made/makes it difficult to beat

After some updates, you may notice it will be working again, and then it will be broken again
The frustration happens on both sides, it's broken for bot users or it's broken for those of us who want it to stop bot users

The problem is not ReCAPTCHA, the problem is the use of common automation to beat another automated process (the applications on both side keep updating... it's a war)

Customisations however pops out this loop


It is in my opinion a waste of time and money to create a system whose only fail safe is a continuous update, and for this system to be widely used and thus make it a target
This just means the bot will also continuously update, and once it is beaten, the damage is extensive


I would not call it useless... just incredibly common and thus it makes it self a target rendering it for the time being 'useless'
 
Since I did this very simple thing:
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/how-i-stopped-spam-bot-registrations.39307/
I have not had one bot register on my site...get the odd user registering to promote their wares but that gets nipped in the bud very quickly

It's good to see customisation, but you have a bit of an issue if a user clicks "forgot my password" or other areas the CAPTCHA is in place (contact us / posting without being signed in, etc). You can achieve the same thing with CustomImgCaptcha (free... no template edits and just upload your image + change question text)

or... go into those templates, and also update all places that CAPTCHA is present
 
It's good to see customisation, but you have a bit of an issue if a user clicks "forgot my password" or other areas the CAPTCHA is in place (contact us / posting without being signed in, etc)
If a user clicks forgot my password then they would already be a user to have a password wouldn't they...as per the other CAPTCHA areas, that is admin defined on where to use them and the admin can apply the same principle to those areas if they choose them as they do with registration...I am simply stopping registrations by bots who would have then posted spam in their signatures, profiles etc...not registered, no potential spam...and as I said, it has worked for me, everyone no doubt can find their own solution but mine was very quick and simple and doesn't rely on any 3rd party or external mod etc...the point is, find a way that suits your needs and some times it just comes down to your own imagination
 
I agree... I was just pointing out what I spotted

Customisation and variants of your own CATPCHA mechinms is far better than using a system that everyone uses (you are far less of a target with registration customisations)
 
I should be a spam assassin. pay me a nickel each time I delete a spam. given the size of the internet, I should be filthy rich by tomorrow am.
 
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