spam bots targeting XF-websites ?

[erich37]

I would imagine that "xenforo"-websites have been specifically targeted by bots ? For whatever reason.....

So I think bots can see the wording "xen" and "xenforo" in the source-code of our forum-scripts and then hitting all of our forums with spam ?

A long long time ago I have purchased a "branding free" licence for XF and have asked why there is no version which is removing the wording "xenforo" from the source-code.

The answer from Kier was:
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/branding-free-split-from-version-number.1593/page-7#post-49626

I am wondering now if the reference to "xenforo" in the source-code would be eliminated, would this then diminish the spam and bot-attacks ?

 

[BGL]

Spamming is just another way of PR for some people. And it seems to make money for them. So it won't stop, regardless what "regulations" are created.

It's paid for advertising, not PR. It will stop just as spam faxes were stopped for the same reason, they impose a cost on the recipients.

 

[MagnusB]

It won't stop. Tracing a fax is easy, there are plenty of ways to mask the origin of a post made to a forum. Rather deal with it instead of trying to impose the responsibility on others.

 

[BGL]

It won't stop. Tracing a fax is easy, there are plenty of ways to mask the origin of a post made to a forum. Rather deal with it instead of trying to impose the responsibility on others.

Impose the responsibility on those who spam is the way to end it. Nothing's anonymous on the web. Everybody gets tracked down. It starts with the advertisers. Easy to look at their business accounts and see where they are paying the spammers.

 

[MagnusB]

We see that working real well with email spam, already illegal over large parts of the world. If you think spam is such a problem, lock your site off and make it invite only.

 

[BGL]

We see that working real well with email spam, already illegal over large parts of the world. If you think spam is such a problem, lock your site off and make it invite only.

Kind of like advising to go live in gated community with private guards vs. dealing with gangsters.

Problem is a lot of the "legitimate" web economy makes money off the spam so there are no laws against it and no fines or enforcement when there are weak regulations. Need strong regulations and enforcement and spam will be eliminated.

 

[MagnusB]

No, there is an obvious difference. You need a place to live, yet you decided to have a website open for members to register. You also decided to have your own set of rules, then it is your own job to police those rules. You can't expect any government to police your own rules for you. There is no law against advertising in general, it is perfectly legal. There are also simple step you can take to prevent about 99% of all spam, so you are making it out to be a much bigger problem than it really is.

 

[BGL]

There is no law against advertising in general, it is perfectly legal.

As with the spam faxes, it is not legal when it imposes a cost on the recipient of the ads.

WalMart doesn't have the right to put up advertising inside KMarts. Private property as are forums, email, online stores etc.

Spam is a predatory business practice that should be made illegal on the web as it has been made illegal via fax.

 

[CTXMedia]

Legislation didn't stop fax spam, email did. It replaced faxes very quickly as the primary form of written business communication and took promotion from a very high cost, localised method (faxing prospects was expensive and prohibitively so outside your own country) to a very low cost global method (via email) ... so what's not to like about spam for those who don't care where their sales come from??!!

 

[BGL]

Legislation didn't stop fax spam, email did.

Uh...no. Every business has a fax machine. Email didn't' replace it. Coming to work finding your machine out of paper and your needed faxes not received or sent...business demanded ended of spam faxes and that was that.

Do the same with spam email and postings. Regulation, fines, enforcement and law suits would wipe it out. Big fines for those paying for the spam is top of the list.

Easy to do but so much of the web economy makes money off of it. That is the problem. We see it with the "do not follow" and other privacy rules that impede advertising on the web.