Private message spam

Post by **betajaen** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:16 pm

And feeling left out, I got one from mailmy as well. I didn't read it, I deleted it straight away.

I think my idea of X number of posts to PM is certainly needed rather updating the forum software or some other insane hacks to stop spamming or the most drastic approach is to disable private messaging entirely.

Xavyiy · Post by **Xavyiy** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:17 pm

I've been spammed by karabinerka too.

therealiwas · Post by **therealiwas** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:39 pm

received from karabinerka

sorry I sent a pm before i found this thread, my apologies

KungFooMasta · Post by **KungFooMasta** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:54 pm

I've also received one from karabinerka. Not any new information, other than a lot of users are getting spammed these days.

BigHands · Post by **BigHands** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:25 am

I was also just spammed by karabinerka. Also, the link may also contain another username:

?r=mikolajek

JohnJ · Post by **JohnJ** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:56 am

In case any more confirmation is needed: I've just been spammed by "karabinerka" also.

Post by **haffax** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:20 am

Following users deleted:
karabinerka
mailmy

If this is an ongoing problem we will have to implement some automatic way to deal with it. PM spam is extra annoying for affected users.

kat · Post by **kat** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:52 am

Hey at least it got me to log back into the forums after years of being registered!

Minthos · Post by **Minthos** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 9:25 am

Yeah I got a mail but no PM in inbox too, so I thought about emailing sinbad about it but had the foresight to check the forum for threads about it first ;)

emperorsnewmusic · Post by **emperorsnewmusic** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 10:48 am

I just got a notification of a non-spam PM that was sent to me in 2005. I'd already been notified and read the message in 2005. When I logged onto the forum today (not via any link in the PM notification email, although http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/privmsg.php?folder=inbox looks ok to me), it sure enough indicated that I had one new message, which was that old PM...

Probably not important, but it seems a bit irregular and perhaps worth mentioning. Maybe OT here, but it seems like an interesting coincidence that I receive this just as some accounts are compromised...

Happy rendering. I hope these idiots don't cause too much of a headache.

Sternenstaub · Post by **Sternenstaub** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 2:27 pm

Just a small sugestion that worked pretty well in another forum:

Maybe change one of the GET-/POST-Parameters that are send on registration. Most bots seem to be pretty "dumb" and expect that every phpbb-forum uses the same paramter-names there.

For example, in includes/usercp_register.php changing the parameter "agreed" to something else can stop a lot of the bots from automatic registering. It's changing just one word in around 4 or 5 lines, but was surprisingly effective on another forum.

WhiteKnight · Post by **WhiteKnight** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:04 pm

sinbad wrote: And please, no-one else PM or email me about spam or missing messages when you go to your inbox (they're gone because the user is gone)

@emperorsnewmusic As Sinbad said you got a spam message, but it was deleted as a result of the spam user being deleted. I ended up having a similar result to what you had, as I didn't clean out my inbox.

Post by **sinbad** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 6:35 pm

I think these are actually people, since our captcha got rid of our previous forum spam problem, and the numbers of users have been small.

I really hate hacking phpBB - it's so disorganised and upgrading for security patches later is a pain in the ass. I already have more hacks than I like (for spam and bot protection). Will monitor to see if this problem persists before deepening that.

I'm testing phpBB3 on and off for future deployment, but I'm waiting for the first couple of patch releases. The first one has already fixed some security issues. I have a converted copy of the forum locally running it, but I'll also need to sort out a new theme, and probably re-write the MediaWiki AuthPlugin for the new phpBB3 API. So it will be a while yet.

triton · Post by **triton** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 8:53 pm

sinbad, take a look at SMF 2.0, it seems really nice.

Post by **betajaen** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 8:56 pm

triton wrote:sinbad, take a look at SMF 2.0, it seems really nice.

If we are heading in this direction why not use Beast, apart from the scary name it's very simple and perfect for what the forums need.

Otherwise a "homebrewed" solution could be used. I've written my own forum software - twice and never had any spammers.

Post by **Kojack** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 9:47 pm

sinbad, take a look at SMF 2.0, it seems really nice.

Chances of it being used are low:
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=3

emperorsnewmusic · Post by **emperorsnewmusic** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:41 pm

WhiteKnight wrote:
sinbad wrote: And please, no-one else PM or email me about spam or missing messages when you go to your inbox (they're gone because the user is gone)
@emperorsnewmusic As Sinbad said you got a spam message, but it was deleted as a result of the spam user being deleted. I ended up having a similar result to what you had, as I didn't clean out my inbox.

Ah, sorry about that. I could've sworn that when I logged into the forum, it still said I had one new message until I clicked on the link and went to my inbox. Anyway, no matter.

som · Post by **som** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:35 am

i got a mail in my email account that i have a pm from sinbad..

but when i got to check it ,i found none

Post by **sinbad** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 4:43 pm

I'm running SMF on another site and yeah, it's nice. Pain in the ass to convert to though and the same post-install issues as phpBB3, just without a slick converter.

DanielSefton · Post by **DanielSefton** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 4:45 pm

Not sure where else to post this... eryereo is spamming the forums.

Post by **Kojack** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 5:21 pm

He's wiped now.

nullsquared · Post by **nullsquared** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 1:58 am

I'm curious, what do spammers gain? It's like...

"Hi, my name is Average Joe and I am collecting money for the good cause of -"

*delete*

reptor · Post by **reptor** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 8:51 pm

Money is the motive.

Because they can get money even when you only click a link they sent to you.

Get a huge number of people to click your links... $bling$ $bling$

Be advised, people have been jailed for doing it.

Lizard · Post by **Lizard** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:38 pm

user qrst986 is spamming various threads on the forums.

DanielSefton · Post by **DanielSefton** » Sat Aug 16, 2008 4:50 pm

oitthuuu is at it now. This is silly -- it's the same guy/bot.

Block the term 'wow gold' - replace it with something like 'smelly socks'.

our smelly socks site, cheap smelly socks, buy smelly socks.

Edit: iDragula is another one.