Massive Spam wave.. DEFEATED!!

[FalxZZR]

***IF YOUR USERNAME SEEMS TO HAVE DISAPPEARED READ THIS POST***

Over the past 3 days, spam attacks on the forum have greatly increased, to the point that between 10pm last night and 7am this morning I had 40 new spam registrations, many of which where able to defeat the CAPTCHA system and get posts up.

I have taken actions which should have GREATLY reduced the ability of the bots to attack the site. Nothing is foolproof, so you can expect to see much less, but still some spam. I also went through and deleted all users that had ZERO posts, that also had suspect names or email addresses. Some, you can tell by the names or emails are local folks who signed up and never posted. However, I could have caught some zero post lurkers etc with my net. If this happened to you, you can either re-register, or contact me via the 'Contact Us' link in the header, and I will get you set back up.

Happy foruming, and down with spam bastards!

[RLP65202]

Thank you for all of you continued hard work. I can't imagine the hours it takes to run this site, but we really apprecate your dedication. If not for you there would be no MMR!
Thank you,
Russ

[Pegasus1]

+1

[FalxZZR]

From the time I posted this until now, 3:36pm, i had 20 new spambot registrations. 6 of which got through the first line of defense onto posting. More domains banned, more spammers defeated.

Unfortunately many attacks come from gmail, and all i can really do short of banning gmail addresses, is proactively clean them after they have spammed us. Im always working on better spam guards, so please bear with me.

[FalxZZR]

Update:

It looks like MMR is not the only board being super slammed by spammers in the last few days.

Overnight there where over 40 spambot registrations, with only one being able to defeat the captcha. More domains banned, more spambots averted. Again, the spambots coming from gmail, yahoo, and hotmail, are the worst, because banning those domain names from registering would affect REAL members to the point where its just not worth it.

In the past few days there has been a hundred fold increase on spam attacks targeting v bulletin boards with captcha as the main anti-spam. Every local board I have seen, and many many national boards are being hammered hard.

I am working now but before the weekend is out I may have to add a question or other form of anti-spam to the registration process, to help keep the spambots out.

[Leah P]

Holy Moly! That is just ridiculous!

[Pegasus1]

It is even happening to a forum on reloading that I contribute to.

[earz]

Just put a question in "what is the third letter of midmoriders.com? Not sure how big of a job it would be to make it ask for a different letter each time, but I've joined a few other forums that ask similar questions

[FalxZZR]

That involves a VB module, which I will end up having to do, no matter which route I choose.

[FalxZZR]

Ive just added ANOTHER layer of protection. If you are a new user, trying to register, and get an error message saying you have been blacklisted via the anti spam, please use the CONTACT US link in the top left corner of the page and I will get you fixed up.