Posted by Kim on September 8, 2011, 1:56am
Remember last month when we were hit with a massive sign-up attack?Even though hundreds of fake accounts were deleted after that was stopped, a number have remained as sleeper agents until now by logging in and out at random intervals, to simulate real usage. Today, those sleeper agents have been activating one by one, and spraying our forums down with spam about designer boots and bizarre offers to sell us opensource (read: free) software for the low low price of $133.95.
The mods and I have been deleting the spam as fast as it arrives, and I have identified and deleted another 60+ of these ninja spambot accounts preemptively.
Apologies for the nuisance. We'll kill 'em dead soon enough.
Comments
Trickster has the right idea!
We had to put in a Q&A CAPTCHA for the TGT Forums. For the longest time we had to have it set that only Admins could approve accounts (until we were able to get our forums updated) which made us have to delete upwards of 50 spammers daily (which was a major pain in the butt.)
I'm glad they were all handled with! Must've happened while I was sleep. ;p
We had to put in a Q&A CAPTCHA for the TGT Forums. For the longest time we had to have it set that only Admins could approve accounts (until we were able to get our forums updated) which made us have to delete upwards of 50 spammers daily (which was a major pain in the butt.)
I'm glad they were all handled with! Must've happened while I was sleep. ;p
Don't worry Iokua! Things are being taken care of, you're safe. 
And thanks everybody for your support. Especially thanks to the mods, who turn out to be crack shots. They removed a bunch of stuff during the night, and combined with their reports and some user reports, I was able to find another nest of sleeping spambots and zap them before they woke up.
The sign up logs from the time period of the original attack are starting to look squeaky clean, so I'm hopeful we're almost at the other end of it. One day isn't so bad, as "sieges" go!
And thanks everybody for your support. Especially thanks to the mods, who turn out to be crack shots. They removed a bunch of stuff during the night, and combined with their reports and some user reports, I was able to find another nest of sleeping spambots and zap them before they woke up.
The sign up logs from the time period of the original attack are starting to look squeaky clean, so I'm hopeful we're almost at the other end of it. One day isn't so bad, as "sieges" go!
Trickster, those are all great suggestions. I'll look into that. As much as I love recaptcha, since it is for a good cause, I do find it difficult to answer sometimes and frankly, it's ugly.
I haven't noticed this at all, so congrats and thank you to the mods for dealing with this so effectively! 
Good luck!
Good luck!
Yikes! Totally not cool 
I'll let you know if I see any evil ads!
I'll let you know if I see any evil ads!
oh wow.. it's a good thing I got in before this all started >.< Ya. I might be keen on figuring things out but I'm lazy, and I actually enjoy the capcha things. That.. and I'm always "signed in" on things, 
mainly because I'm lazy, and forget to write passwords down o.o' Ya.. I should probably start doing that. but we'll let ya know if things going haywire on here! Thank you for the heads up as well 
mainly because I'm lazy, and forget to write passwords down o.o' Ya.. I should probably start doing that. but we'll let ya know if things going haywire on here! Thank you for the heads up as well
Trickster
September 8, 2011
5:36am
The problem with Captcha is that spammers endlessly try to break Captcha with botnets until they manage to crack it and it's oftentimes difficult to see what the letters are for ordinary users. No automated spammers would be able to figure out '1+2+3 -> 6' or 'Last word? -> Help'.
There's a captcha system in place since the sign up attack.
Just to mention, as good as we are at getting rid of spam, if you spot any, let me or one of the other moderators know and we'll delete it for you
Just to mention, as good as we are at getting rid of spam, if you spot any, let me or one of the other moderators know and we'll delete it for you
Trickster
September 8, 2011
4:31am
It would probably help to stop this from happening again in the future if there were a basic, random question pool to pull from whenever someone tries to register.
Enter the name of this website in lowercase, after the www. and before the .com:
1+2+3 = ?:
What is the last word on this page, after 'Advertising'?:
Enter the name of this website in lowercase, after the www. and before the .com:
1+2+3 = ?:
What is the last word on this page, after 'Advertising'?:
Kim
September 14, 2011
1:14pm
It will go in when the redesign update hits.