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Forum attacked and invaded by bots.

Started by scarface, December 15, 2014, 09:38 PM

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Daniil

Quote from: Vasudev on December 24, 2014, 04:33 PM
why not fight bots(enemy) with bots(Our friendly bots).
How do you think to do this?

Vasudev

I don't  know Ismet might have an answer.

humbert

@Daniil - you are definitely correct when it comes to how bots get access to our forum. The only plausible explanation is a human registering and bypassing captcha, then selling the account to these cockroaches. I noticed some captchas I'm faced with are very difficult to solve. Difficult for a human brain, impossible for a computer (at least at this writing).

@Vasudev - what "good" bots? I have yet to see one.

humbert

Do you guys think it would help if captchas were enforced not only during registration but also for (for example) the first 10 posts or topics created? I'm also wondering if there's some way to keep captcha on new accounts until an administrator lifts the registration. I don't know if it's a good idea to take this up with Maher.

scarface

#24
You want a solution, here is my solution: you delete every account because 90% are fakes, those who want to come back will have to create again their account, except perhaps a few faithful users.


You put a new registration scheme, with some mathematical problems like this one:
If you have 2 carrots, increase the number threefold, and then add 15, how many carrots do you have?
It would be better to put the resolution of a second order polynomial of the form ax²+bx+c=0, with a,b, c varying randomly so that only those who know how to resolve such a system could complete the registration for this great forum.

Of course there is a problem with the boss. But I'm sure humbert and myself have sufficient knowledge in html to implement this.

Daniil

If you need a script to make a barrier for bots, I can help you. I'm coding PHP and JS, not very bad. :)

scarface

How many real users are there on the forum Daniil? probably between 5000 and 15000. That means there are already 50000 bots, therefore no need to make a barrier, till they are here. Now it's up to Maher to decide if he wants to do something.

humbert

It's not that Maher doesn't care, it's that he's very busy between his jobs and family matters. Let's do this - I'm going to email him the link to this topic and having look over your suggestions. As owner of the forum, Maher has the final word on what action should be taken to eliminate (or at least mitigate) this problem.

This is as far as I can go, not counting the garbage topics and posts I've removed. Let's see what happens. Thanks for believing I'm doing a good job moderating the forum.

Maher

Hey guys..

First of all thank you for the care you show towards our forums, really appreciated!
I think no more bots are able to sign up now and create new topics.
The "few" who success are actually real humans who get paid for signing up and creating those posts. They can only be tackled by admins and moderators.

We're missing Ahmad, I hope he's fine. I wrote him but still no reply..
If things stay the same I think we'll have to appoint a new moderator to help Humb. We'll see..

Love you guys ;)
Peace
Please, DO NOT send messages for support! Ask on the forums. Thank you.

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