Forum disruption

[Rack Daniels]

Yeah dude, SPAM central!!

 

[Lostinthewoods]

I’ve noticed they are attacking at night.
I hoped on this am and had 18 reports and 9 spam user flagged trying to create accounts. Unfortunately all the others made it through.


Keep flagging them and we will ban them all when we get on.

Sorry for that, this has been wild.

 

[Lostinthewoods]

It’s still going wild with bots so please keep reporting and we will clean it up.

Just a subtle reminder - especially while it’s calm here and everyone is getting along for the most part.

Randy just paid MORE for another add on to reduce bots from causing disruption on here.

I say this to revalidate the fact this forum is all red on the balance sheet and bleeds cash.

So it’s very appreciated when we can keep the peace, self police, and not be obnoxious trolls.




Again, we will do our best to keep killing the bots. At first it was only happening at night, but we just got hit by a small wave during the day.

 

[Hem]

How much in the red?
Divide it by the # of members, problem solved.
Couldn't be more than the cost of a six pack of quality beer.

 

[Jnasa]

How much in the red?
Divide it by the # of members, problem solved.
Couldn't be more than the cost of a six pack of quality beer.

I'd prefer to see a voluntary donation option instead. Id happily throw some money at it. Like the free option for people though.

 

[Big Fin]

I wish these Russians and other offshore assholes would be the target of a Ukrainian drone strike.

It is so annoying. Total forum costs are now pushing $30K per year. As much as I've hesitated to allow outside advertising and we have offered free ads only to those companies who support our video and podcast platforms, I'm starting to wonder if that is sustainable.

Being of Finnish ancestry, I've been brought up with a serious suspicion of Russia and their institutions. The teams of spammers and bots that are encouraged there makes my dislike of Russia even greater.

 

[Gellar]

I wish these Russians and other offshore assholes would be the target of a Ukrainian drone strike.

It is so annoying. Total forum costs are now pushing $30K per year. As much as I've hesitated to allow outside advertising and we have offered free ads only to those companies who support our video and podcast platforms, I'm starting to wonder if that is sustainable.

Being of Finnish ancestry, I've been brought up with a serious suspicion of Russia and their institutions. The teams of spammers and bots that are encouraged there makes my dislike of Russia even greater.

on a bright note, these Russians don’t post pictures.

Thanks for all you guys do behind the scenes!

 

[BenP]

At least the bots used the thread that is talking about them being a problem.

 

[warmer]

Can someone explain the end game of the Bots? Simply to disrupt or are they phishing for something?

 

[Redmt]

Can someone explain the end game of the Bots? Simply to disrupt or are they phishing for something?

If they are trying to confuse some of the older members it's too late. I've been like this for years.

 

[noharleyyet]

…like locusts

 

[Lostinthewoods]

This morning was wild.
I think they hit every section and sub section

 

[Rack Daniels]

I was going to say yall might have nipped it in the bud!? I didn’t see 2 pages of it this morning like the last couple days!

 

[Nuts]

Crazy. Start a donation box!

 

[Lostinthewoods]

I was going to say yall might have nipped it in the bud!? I didn’t see 2 pages of it this morning like the last couple days!

I am usually up around 3:45 on week days so I got to clean it up before most people saw it.

I still had 16 repots!

 

[Lostinthewoods]

Can someone explain the end game of the Bots? Simply to disrupt or are they phishing for something?

Lots of reasons, but you’re on to some.

A lot of them are trying to get people to click their links and steal data, phishing, advertising, disruption, etc etc etc

Part of me think it’s data collection too. They can see how many bots it needs to shut down a site. So they can use that data to apply towards larger platforms.

Similar to the planned attacks with all of the linked phones calling and texting at the same time to jam phone networks.

 

[Wyomufhunter]

Its 100% time for a paywall

 

[Redmt]

Its 100% time for a paywall

Does that mean you pay $$ to buy a membership here? I would go for a 1 time buy in if it would help admin to weed out the attacking horde.

 

[Wyomufhunter]

Does that mean you pay $$ to buy a membership here? I would go for a 1 time buy in if it would help admin to weed out the attacking horde.

I think a yearly fee or even a 1 time fee to create your account. The paywall keeps the bots from creating accounts and then posting the BS that is causing the site to "crash" with its protections. The paywall not only would stop the bots, but it would help Randy and crew to be able to easily afford the site maintenance for us.

 

[Big Fin]

Here is an example of a spammer. The software caught his information and asked me what I wanted to do with him. He has the same email as three other banned users in the data base. He has a shared IP address with 18 other banned users.

Obviously, he is toasted. Or, this bot is toasted.

I could automatically have the system reject them if anything matches a banned member, but many registered users and new users share an IP address, ISP, or other information that might be reported to us. It sucks that we have to address these manually, at least when the volume is so high. Over the lunch hour, I've toasted three of them.

Note the format of the name - 5-8 alpha characters followed by 3-4 numeric characters. That is the trait with 90% of the bots/spammers. I would caution anyone from buying/selling in the classifieds with an unknown person who has a similar username protocol.