Forum under constant siege

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Users may not notice this, but the forum has been under constant siege for about 9 months.

Lots of new users, easily spotted by an oddity in their user names and tgheir accounts are never verified.

They almost always sign up for several other MTM accounts at the same time.

Naturally the accounts get 'terminated with extreme prejudice' as their purpose is almost certainly to spread spam links via the forum.

We also get a smattering of less sophisticated dodgy accounts.

One tweaked my intuition today, and when I searched for the associated email on Google it came up on a site dedicated to stopping forum spamming as operating from two IP addresses regularly used by spammers in Pakistan. It also turned up posting on a forum for spammers which was a bit of a dead give-away!

No doubt some dodgy folks will get though, take care – it's like a jungle sometimes!

Anyway thank you all and goodnight, off to enjoy a hot bath before tomorrow and its chaos!

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

The Force be with You, Neil

MichaelG.

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

Dear Neil, your computer has a virus. Please click on this link to solve all your problems

**LINK**

Merry Christmas from Australia, Keep up the good work mate, it's a lovely mag!

* Danny M *

[Chris TriceParticipant @christrice43267]

I run a Facebook group and get three or four clearly bogus applications to join every day. In this case, one of the options is they need an admin to approve their first few postings. I wonder if the forum software here allows similar?

[DalboyParticipant @dalboy]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 24/12/2018 22:28:31:

Users may not notice this, but the forum has been under constant siege for about 9 months.

Lots of new users, easily spotted by an oddity in their user names and tgheir accounts are never verified.

They almost always sign up for several other MTM accounts at the same time.

Naturally the accounts get 'terminated with extreme prejudice' as their purpose is almost certainly to spread spam links via the forum.

We also get a smattering of less sophisticated dodgy accounts.

One tweaked my intuition today, and when I searched for the associated email on Google it came up on a site dedicated to stopping forum spamming as operating from two IP addresses regularly used by spammers in Pakistan. It also turned up posting on a forum for spammers which was a bit of a dead give-away!

No doubt some dodgy folks will get though, take care – it's like a jungle sometimes!

Anyway thank you all and goodnight, off to enjoy a hot bath before tomorrow and its chaos!

Neil

I have been having the same problem on the sister site Getwoodworking. The same person tried it three times in one day not any more

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Posted by Chris Trice on 25/12/2018 00:23:08:

one of the options is they need an admin to approve their first few postings. I wonder if the forum software here allows similar?

That is how we spot them, all first posts meed the mods to approve or otherwise. A lot more than 4 most days too.

Three times is not much I did about 8 from the same person a few days ago.

If there is the odd one that I think may be a bit suspect I will leave it until Neil takes a look then it's on his head if they get through

Edited By JasonB on 25/12/2018 07:18:35

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Presumably they have to give you their email to register. So you can collect all the emails and sell them to someone who wants a list of sure fire contacts interested in model engineering

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

As a moderator in a different, far less busy context, all I can say is thankyou and I don't envy you your responsibility.

Thanks again,

Nick

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

On another forum, "The Stirling Engine Forum" that I frequent we have had big problems over the years, big enough to close the site, and have to change who provides the site(don't know the correct term), the site is still running but we lost the photo galleries that we had.

Keep up the good work Neil, and best wishes for the New Year.

Ian S C

[HughEParticipant @hughe]

Ian,

ISP, internet service provider.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

We've had one poor PR person posting about five long posts describing their product on Christmas Day, presumably hoping the mods would be temporarily incapacitated.

Of course, the system has held all their posts which now seem to have fallen down a wormhole

Neil

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Thanks HughE. The above site gets large write ups for things like Adidas shoes etc. I usually end up reporting them in to be deleted, but on three occasions we have been swamped with hundreds of these things, and arriving on site so fast that the only cure is to shut down. I don't think there are any official moderators, only Boydhouse the site owner. It seems as though it is a problem effecting all on the internet.

Ian S C

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