Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

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Pugsy
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Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by Pugsy » Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:40 am

Hey guys...everyone knows we have been getting regular visits from the annoying Chinese spammer in the wee hours of the morning.
He/it also seems to test us randomly during the day as well but I can squash those attempts easily.

He's figured out that there is a time here when no one is here to immediately block him.

So I am making a sticky that will show up at the top of the Topics section for members and newbies to see.
Just to let everyone know that we are aware of what is happening.
No need to panic. As soon as someone gets online who has the powers to stop the spammer and remove the spam it will be cleaned up.

I got up at just shortly before 5 AM this morning and the spammer was online with a dozen or so accounts....spamming away and from the times I saw probably had been for at least 4 hours.
He stayed away until I went to bed last night and then did a couple of little test spam posts and when they weren't immediately blocked and removed then he went ahead and started the full blown attack.

So the first thing I did was go to the account IDs involved and block each account from posting anything. Once he no longer has access to those accounts I then I started cleaning up the spam which was posted while I was asleep. It's a slow process for me but I do what I can until someone with powers to do bigger block removals gets on line.

While I was doing the clean up this morning the spammer came back shortly after 6 AM and created 4 more accounts and attempted to post spam again. Those were immediately squashed. I can block him faster than he can create the accounts. He quickly went away but rest assured ....he will be back.

The forum owners are looking at various other options available in an attempt to keep this guy from doing this.
I am not a party to whatever the options might be so there's no need to point me to this option or that option. That's something I have no input in.

So until we can get him totally blocked...just bear with us.
As soon as I can get on line in the mornings I will stop him from new postings and start removal of the posts that got made while I as in bed.

There's no need to bother spam reporting the posts. I will see it easily enough without it being officially reported as spam.

Oh...I did some google searches of the spam we are being hit with. We aren't the only ones. He's not just targeting us here.
He's doing it on a whole bunch of other forums too.

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Goofproof
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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by Goofproof » Mon Mar 12, 2018 12:57 pm

Your "Sticky", didn't Stick, it's on the move. Jim

I found it creaping down the page, and lured it back to the top.
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ChicagoGranny
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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by ChicagoGranny » Mon Mar 12, 2018 1:03 pm

Pugsy wrote:
Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:40 am
The forum owners are looking at various other options available in an attempt to keep this guy from doing this.
Image

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Pugsy
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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by Pugsy » Mon Mar 12, 2018 1:08 pm

Goofproof wrote:
Mon Mar 12, 2018 12:57 pm
Your "Sticky", didn't Stick, it's on the move. Jim
I know...I can't make it stick. Not in my job powers.. :lol:
Carolyn will make it a sticky when she gets a chance.
She's aware of it but is kinda busy right now.
Hopefully it will stick by the time evening/night comes.

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Pugsy
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Re: Soon to be Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by Pugsy » Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:21 pm

bump while I try to find out how to make stickies.

The Chinese dude came back around 8 PM tonight. He will be back later. He's waiting for me to go to bed.

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bendauphinee
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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by bendauphinee » Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:56 pm

The sticky is now sticky-d.

As Pugsy said, we are looking into new options, abd will be squashing the spam as we see it.

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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by prodigyplace » Tue Mar 13, 2018 4:33 am

I noticed a couple of suspicious new user accounts created around 8:30 pm Eastern time. I do not know if that is helpful information. They looked like random letters beginning with a.

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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by Pugsy » Tue Mar 13, 2018 4:35 am

prodigyplace wrote:
Tue Mar 13, 2018 4:33 am
I noticed a couple of suspicious new user accounts created around 8:30 pm Eastern time. I do not know if that is helpful information. They looked like random letters beginning with a.
Yep...they were the Chinese dude seeing if I was paying attention. I was.....they are gone. :lol:
He's trying again right now to get new account IDs.

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Sheriff Buford
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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by Sheriff Buford » Tue Mar 13, 2018 6:25 am

I'm about to get my baton outta retirement and do some head bustin!!

Sheriff

PaulKTF
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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by PaulKTF » Tue Mar 13, 2018 8:50 am

Can't you block by IP address or IP range instead of playing Whack-A-Mole with the accounts?

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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by chunkyfrog » Tue Mar 13, 2018 10:29 am

I'm guessing he/she/it is way beyond that, like a few months ago.
And smarter than most of us, including you.

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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by Pugsy » Tue Mar 13, 2018 10:36 am

PaulKTF wrote:
Tue Mar 13, 2018 8:50 am
Can't you block by IP address or IP range instead of playing Whack-A-Mole with the accounts?
Well. yeah...I suppose but what happens when the spammer has used a proxy server and it ends up being the same IP address that you and I have?

These guys know how to hide their real IP addresses.

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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by Janknitz » Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:23 pm

The thing I hate about this is it's all on you, Pugsy, to spend almost every waking moment 7 days a week on spam blocking. That has got to change.
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Pugsy
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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by Pugsy » Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:44 pm

Janknitz wrote:
Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:23 pm
The thing I hate about this is it's all on you, Pugsy, to spend almost every waking moment 7 days a week on spam blocking. That has got to change.
No, no...guys and gals it isn't all on me. Ben helps me clean out the posts that happen when I can't prevent them.
And if I am online when the guy starts...that account gets banned immediately so I don't have much to have to clean up.
Here lately I have spent more time than usual but that was my choice because I am stubborn and bullheaded.

Last night...I had a really bad night and couldn't sleep anyway.
What with Vivian passing and my back absolutely just killing me I simply couldn't sleep...so I figured if I couldn't sleep much then I might as well be productive while awake...and I am OCD enough that I really like zapping that little SOB.
My back has been so bad lately that I haven't felt like doing anything else anyway.

It's my choice...I don't have to do this. I know that. I just really hate letting the asshole win when I can make him lose. :lol:

In the meantime I have been doing some reading about this jerk or probably more than one jerk. He's highly annoying to a lot of people...forums, email accounts, whatever. He's not easy to stop. Got some fancy bots working for him.

This is still a lot better and easier to manage than back last summer when we had the really big prolonged attack.
I can block the new accounts quicker than he can make them. Last summer we couldn't. He was making them faster than anyone could block them and posting the spam at the same time.

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Re: Sticky about recent spam bot attacks

Post by Janknitz » Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:46 pm

Maybe we need a team of spam killers in different time zones so he doesn't have a chance to get through?
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