Excessive spamming on CD
 

I am sure many people have noticed it. I just got this PM today:

I seems to me that there needs to be a more rigorous system to ensure that new users aren't spammers/spam bots. The amount of spam posts/threads is much higher on CD than any other forum I frequent.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Spammers are getting more and more creative.

Moderators (and vBulletin) have a number of means to deal with them; however, spammers like to get around those.

There was a suggestion that the moderators re-distribute themselves to help, but even that might not work with PM spam.

I'd go with a minimum post limit for PM sending (say, 1-5 posts before PMs), kind of like with the rep system

Mods, can you get to user Daisy22, fast?

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

I personally don't think restricting PMs to when you've made x posts is particularly helpful. I've gotten PMs from people with zero posts who had nothing to say on the forums but wanted to know something about my team or robot.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

I think the restriction would simply force the spammers to make (for example) posts of spam before the PM spam. However, a minimum post threshold can determine the variables for the folloing algorithm, much like fraud detection sensitivity increases for a credit profile when a credit card # is stolen:

For low post-count users, perhaps delay all PM's by [N] seconds to see if multiple PMs from the same user are being sent out. For each new PM sent before the delay expires, increase the delay of all PM's by that user by [N] more seconds. Once a quantity [X] of PM's are sent out by a single user before the delay [N] expires, delay them indefinitely until a mod can visually review them. For PM's sent to multiple users from a 'new' account, put a threshold [Y] of review: e.g. if sent to more than 5 users, it will be delayed until reviewed (4 users would still be delayed via the algorithm described above). Put a disclaimer in the PM process that PM's may be delayed and reviewed if sent en mass.

As a user increases post count, decrease the sensitivity (lower the delays, increase the user threshold) of the variables X, Y and N. In that way, current known accounts (e.g. EricH) are allowed to send multiple [assumed legititmate] PM's without scrutiny while also allowing new legitimate users to do the same once a certain amount of 'trust' is built.

Perhaps it could be a vB feature in the future?

The other metric that could be used is reputation; typically those with 50+ posts have received some sort of reputation, either positive, neutral, or negative (though the actual magnitude of rep shouldn't play into the variables since the concept is just a user authentication algorithm).

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

and user Alexiss

Perhaps there just needs to be a 'report' button for PM's like there is with posts. I don't see why they couldn't be dropped into the same queue from response by moderators.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Both Daisy22 and Alexiss have been disabled, along with 3 others. There may be more that we missed, so post the username if you got one.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

I got one of these messages today from the user "Juliz".

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Add user Daniel3 to the list.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Well, Klarance wants me to build a CNC machine and manufacture parts to my heart's content.

Obviously, this 'person' has no idea what I am capable of. ::ouch::

Jane

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

With a twist--if a user gets reported enough times by enough different people, their PM sending privileges automagically get shut down long enough for a moderator to review the reports and either allow the PMs or block the user's PM/site access. I don't know how hard that would be to implement, though.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

I'm thinking that if the message is offensive enough that I am going to report them to the board mods, then once is enough. A PM is a bit more personal than a post. As for false flags (not spam), probably one or both users need to be brought up to date on what is acceptable on this board.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Venessa sent me the spam pm.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Add Shanel.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

The member list does not appear to have a "date joined" sort...if so, you'd probably find a lot of spammers among the newest members?

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Dorisz1 doesn't know how small my garage is.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

It's OK, Taylor, size isn't everything.

Ontopic, I feel like having a report function for PMs would be an excellent idea, but feel like kramarczyk is overreacting. If they're a spammer, then most likely they're sending messages out in bulk, so multiple people can still report them. However, if a message is reported that's not spam, (maybe someone is arguing through PM?) then that one report would block that user from the site.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Using the members advanced search, you can search for members joining after a certain date. You can also sort by join date.

I did that yesterday and found 26 of the 52 people who joined in the last 5 days were obvious spammers. This does not count the people who were banned by other moderators during that time period, so it seems that >50% of new members are spammers.

That does seem better then email, where 90% of all email is spam.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Has anyone received more than one spam pm?

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Nope, just one here.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

I'm kind of impressed that I haven't gotten a spam PM yet. Maybe because I haven't been posting a lot...

Does anyone know if this is just a huge problem here, or are multiple vBulletin forums being attacked?

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

No other forum I use has had this issue. :ahh:

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Perhaps an enhanced user registration system should be used.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

I'm on a few forums, and the spam attacks go in waves. CD isn't the worst, but it also isn't the best.

It depends on whether the spammers are computers or not. If the vbulletin captcha had been broken, I'd expect many more spammers, not only here but on other vbulletin forums. There is also the NoSpam! verification question which asks FIRST related information. It's unlikely someone would program a computer to break just CD's questions.

That makes me think these are actual humans doing the spamming (or at least the registering), and makes an enhanced registration system much more difficult.

I think it would be better to focus on some of the things in the following thread, to make the spam less useful and harder to get started with. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...247#post972247

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

Some forums I have registered for require a waiting period while an admin/mod checks out all of the information you have supplied. This sort of manual selection works very well.

Re: Excessive spamming on CD
 

I'd really feel uncomfortable if the CD registration experience became intimidating for a "good faith non poster" - i.e. someone registering to send a PM to a user about their robot or whatnot. Spam is annoying, but not so annoying that we should make our user experience require background checks.