Aurora 4x

Announcements => Announcements => Topic started by: Erik L on January 24, 2017, 01:21:06 PM

Title: Spam Attempts
Post by: Erik L on January 24, 2017, 01:21:06 PM
Just as an FYI, I implemented a new anti-spam feature. In the last week, this feature blocked 710 spam attempts, both bot registrations and guest posts. It does make my life a lot easier :D
Title: Re: Spam Attempts
Post by: 83athom on January 24, 2017, 01:28:22 PM
You mind sharing some of those features, or do you not want to let the spammers know what those features are?
Title: Re: Spam Attempts
Post by: Erik L on January 24, 2017, 01:36:24 PM
It's a plugin to the forum software that compares the IP addresses to spam blacklists.
Title: Re: Spam Attempts
Post by: Erik L on January 24, 2017, 01:47:45 PM
If you look at http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?action=stats at the bottom, you'll see various stats, posts, new users, etc. From 2011 to 2015 there was around 1000 new users per year. 2016 had 11.5k. Not all of these users were approved. But that is definitely when the spam picked up pace fairly hardcore. January's numbers for this year were shaping up to follow suit. But that's when I put in the plugin.

Since then, there have been maybe a dozen new users and 1 or 2 guest posts.
Title: Re: Spam Attempts
Post by: 83athom on January 24, 2017, 01:58:25 PM
Going further into the data, it seems it all started to blow up right after quill18 started his lets play at the end of 2015.
Title: Re: Spam Attempts
Post by: sloanjh on January 25, 2017, 07:08:21 AM
Thanks Erik - I've noticed the reduction in "new user" messages in my inbox already.

John
Title: Re: Spam Attempts
Post by: Erik L on January 31, 2017, 10:44:20 AM
Just an update...

Reporting period Jan 24 2017 - Jan 31 2017

Signups
Spam    Users    Total
1 864       42            1 906


Comments
Spam    Legitimate    Total
48            3                      51


Title: Re: Spam Attempts
Post by: TheDeadlyShoe on January 31, 2017, 06:40:33 PM
what's defined as a comment?
Title: Re: Spam Attempts
Post by: MarcAFK on January 31, 2017, 09:25:15 PM
what's defined as a comment?
This, or erm, this?
Title: Re: Spam Attempts
Post by: Erik L on January 31, 2017, 10:44:07 PM
Comments by guests or unregistered people.