New Spam tactic: Editing posts

[Jeremy]

We've seen it here, but if you have posts auto-moderate with certain phrases (probably happens regardless), the bots have begun to get past this buy posting something simple that won't trigger most of these filters and then immediately editing the post to insert their spam posts.

Quite an annoying tactic that you may want to watch out for.

 

[AzzidReign]

Why not just disable editing until they hit 20 posts? Same can go for posting hyperlinks and adding homepages to their profiles.

 

[Jeremy]

That is one method to prevent it, yes. That tactic isn't going to happen here though.

 

[AzzidReign]

That is one method to prevent it, yes. That tactic isn't going to happen here though.

Why is that?

 

[Jeffin]

May be something of this sort: If a new member adds a link or attachment via edit, it automatically pushes it to a moderation queue. Would such a feature have drawbacks if implemented as a core feature?

 

[Paul B]

Yes, it would potentially cause issues with notifications and post ordering.

The simplest solution would be to block edits.

 

[Alpha1]

Shouldn't edits be subject to auto-moderation?
If keywords in edits do not trigger auto-moderation, then isn't this a bug?

 

[Jeremy]

No, the system is not currently designed to handle edits.

 

[Brent W]

So we have a problem and no solution so far, other than prohibiting the majority of people who would make edits within the rules from doing so.

 

[Moshe1010]

Not sure why the complains. Editing posts after X time causes problems with SEO. I always give my users 24 hours to edit their posts, and after that they need to contact one of the moderators/admins.

 

[akia]

Not sure why the complains. Editing posts after X time causes problems with SEO. I always give my users 24 hours to edit their posts, and after that they need to contact one of the moderators/admins.

I think you missed the point hes making.

Spammers are making a post the not spam to get past the filters. Then a few mins later edkting it to add the spam in.

 

[Moshe1010]

I think you missed the point hes making.

Spammers are making a post the not spam to get past the filters. Then a few mins later edkting it to add the spam in.

Then these spammers are manual spammers and they have no issue to pass the filters from the first place.
I really don't understand the "spammers" problem. Never had them. Just use KeyCaptcha or other flash/HTML5/JS based Captcha and they will never come to your board. Using Captcha based on question/numbers/letters is a pure fail.

 

[Paul B]

So we have a problem and no solution so far, other than prohibiting the majority of people who would make edits within the rules from doing so.

There are several solutions.

Moderate the first x posts, then use a user group promotion to allow them to post, which catches every spammer dead and is what I do on my site.

Prohibit editing of posts for those users who have made less than x posts, then use a user group promotion.

That won't affect the majority of members, only those with less than x posts.

 

[Alpha1]

No, the system is not currently designed to handle edits.

Yes, this means that it works as designed. But the design overlooked an issue which makes the functionality have a loophole. So, not a bug by definition but still something that would be nice if its fixed.

 

[Mike]

It's already been changed for 1.3.

 

[Liam W]

It's already been changed for 1.3.

Wait, 1.3 is in the early stages of progress?

In regards to the issue, just moderate the first few posts. Job done!

 

[Jeremy]

Has been for a while.

 

[Code Monkey]

I have very few spammers that even get through all the ip and email checkers. Then akismet is checking their post. It's usually a out of place post anyway so If I see a weird post I check the IP, Google the username and ban if I find even one spam post on Google or even a better sign is finding an account link on Google for that name and then the account doesn't exist anymore when you click it. Means they were already banned elsewhere. Plus I don't allow edits of posts or much else till 20 posts.