phpbb2: IMPORTANT spambot issue and resolutions

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Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:28 am Post subject:

72... Close to 1,500 spammers reported. _________________ Family Friendly Shareware \| \| Web Design/Services \| Free Forums

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Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 1:34 pm Post subject:

59... 1596 reported. This has to be the lowest rate of attack since all this crap began more than a week ago. _________________ Family Friendly Shareware \| \| Web Design/Services \| Free Forums

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Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 6:45 pm Post subject:

68... 1778 reported. I guess that's a little over 30 an hour being reports, which gels with the fact that the reporting is running across servers and slarti now has 64, Ford a stonking 173, though the Ford/Slarti figures are based on longer bans that have not been cleared. _________________ Family Friendly Shareware \| \| Web Design/Services \| Free Forums

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Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 8:32 pm Post subject:

I've noticed its alway's the same spam bots registering and if you free up the user name by deleting the account with that name the user name is used again at a later date. My idea of banning IP addresses doesn't seem to be the answer after what i've read. _________________

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Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 8:37 pm Post subject:

We recommend against ip bans against individuals as they can be behind proxies, the big time criminal spammers though are not, or using criminal proxies anyway. So our new system does ban ips. I'd advise anyone not to take their own measures, we are ramping up our own systems to shield everyone. _________________ Family Friendly Shareware \| \| Web Design/Services \| Free Forums

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Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 8:39 pm Post subject:

Oh, in that case its ok for moderators to ban the offending spam bot till an admn comes on to delete them or should we just leave them on the banned list? _________________

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Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 8:56 pm Post subject:

Leave them on a banned list based on email for now. _________________ Family Friendly Shareware \| \| Web Design/Services \| Free Forums

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Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 9:48 am Post subject:

Based on email, ok i will start banning there emails now. _________________

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Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:13 pm Post subject:

We're down to 48 current bans with 4701 spammers reported so far. The slow decline of the attack has basically continued. I wonder if at this point if the new defenses were lifted we'd even notice anything was going on 48 bans amounts to one auto spam bot about every 4 minutes, even if they were all targeting the support forum that is a pretty small number. _________________ Family Friendly Shareware \| \| Web Design/Services \| Free Forums

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Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 6:12 pm Post subject:

Back to over 100 again, with close to 10,000 reported. Certainly justifies ongoing work in this area. Already a phpbb3 tweak is in, but that is only the smallest of starts to quite a big plan. _________________ Family Friendly Shareware \| \| Web Design/Services \| Free Forums