14 members online - only 2 genuine

[John.W]

The speed that these new posts are appearing it looks like they are computer generated

[flyerncle]

Shame they cant get sent a nice virus. R Soles

[The V8 Files]

Originally Posted by gygiertione

Just a heads up for everyone that we also have a special Members Only section which is ONLY visible if you are a member and logged in, otherwise you cant see it.

Regards

Admin

This one seems far more coherent than the rest

[twinturbo]

Originally Posted by John.W

The speed that these new posts are appearing it looks like they are computer generated

They are BOTS

TT

[Dualist]

We did have pre-warning from a guy asking where he could download a bit of software that was a spam bot program and it all went pete tong from there.

There is a bot that is on the vb forums to combat this sort of attack but admin would have to install it, software is years out of date which isn't helping so manual checks is the only safe way atm. There are plenty of IP checkers out there to help with any banned IPs.

[robo]

Originally Posted by twinturbo

They are BOTS

TT

WTF is a Bot The only ones I know about are on nice looking chicks.

Bob

[wylliezx9r]

Originally Posted by robo

WTF is a Bot The only ones I know about are on nice looking chicks.

Bob

Short for robot I believe, artificial. Automatically creating these nuisance accounts and crappy usernames. I prefer the ones attached to the ladies !

[twinturbo]

Yes it's short for ROBOT. Been arround for a decade..

some good, some bad, some indiffrent..

the web is richer, the same , poorer for them


It's a bit of code written to go off and do somting on its own..

in this case it will run round the internet looking for vBulletin forums

once it finds a vB forum it will pass that back to another bot

that bot will then see if it can create a user account.

if it does it will pass that to a spam bot and the spam bot will start creating random accounts and post up pre-defined posts.



it's crude, but given the speed of the internet and computers it can get results relativly quickly..


if countermeasures such as e-mail verification are implemented then an advanced bot will sort that..

TT

[The V8 Files]

TT or Ash, do you know when this guy is back from hols, I know you must be totally frustrated with the question/suggestion as well as dealing with the spammy fritters, but the current situation does seem to be having a negative effect on the site, there seems a declining number of genuine posts on a daily basis.

I'm trying to fill it up a bit with my rubbish but I think peeps are bored with that as well

[AshG]

should be back on the 26th i believe but i reckon it will take a bit of time when he is back to come up with a solution.