"Watch ..." spam

[DSeid]

It's been a pretty consistent and persistent series of the same spam (the latest with a teaser about the latest Avatar/Airbender show and placed in the wrong forum for such threads) and I am assuming that some effort has been made to block it. Can some powers that be explain how they go about attempting to block and what the roadblocks are? Just curious about the way things work.

[Marley23]

These people or bots have been a pain in the ass lately, yes. We deal with them the same way we deal with all other spam: using bans on IP addresses and email domains, and occasionally usernames. Last year we also enabled a feature that requires registrants to answer a question to complete the registration of their accounts. It cut way down on spam for a while but hasn't worked much lately. We've changed this question to see if that helps.

[Edward The Head]

Is the question "What is your quest?" cause that might help out a lot too.

[Marley23]

Casting them into a chasm does have a certain appeal.

[Rhythmdvl]

What were the questions? Is Watson spamming us?

[Darth Panda]

Someone should come up with a completely automated public turing test to tell computers and humans apart.

[Simplicio]

Someone should come up with a completely automated public turing test to tell computers and humans apart.

Wouldn't a computer capable of administering a turing test be able to pass a turing test?

Better to use a Voight-Kampf machine, have the board software torture one of the hamsters everytime someone logs in, and if the person logging in feels bad, they're human.

[Rhythmdvl]

A hamster? What's that?!

[Marley23]

What were the questions? Is Watson spamming us?
All of them were simple math questions. I am not sure if posting them just gives the spammers a freebie, so I'm not going post the exact question without checking first. Spambots generally struggle with this kind of thing because they're just programmed to fill in the registration forms.

[TubaDiva]

As more and more sites require captchas of various kinds there's been a rise of "semi-automated" bots, where the machines/programs are facilitated by real people to read captchas and solve puzzles. As long as there are useless assholes humans willing to deal in this kind of business spam will always be with us.

[runner pat]

A hamster? What's that?!

A small furry rodent that runs in wheels. But that's not important right now.

[Rhythmdvl]

A small furry rodent that runs in wheels. But that's not important right now.

This either means you're a replicant, you routinely fail Turring tests, or you like threads about gladiators.

[Marley23]

Just banned another one. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!

[XT]

Uhhhh....blue! No, green......

-XT

[samclem]

The current crop of "watch" spammers who post links to movies and tv things online are a significant increase of anything I've seen as a mod for 10 years.

I think they're real, live, people, usually from India, and it's similar to trying to defeat the Viet Cong. If a population exists that is willing to throw their bodies into the fray, without regard to the consequences, they can outlast you for generations. You can't win. All you can do is hope to contain the spread.

I have suggested(not totally in jest), that we ban all IPs from India. That would do it. But, unfortunately, we have posters from India who aren't spammers.

[Siam Sam]

All of them were simple math questions. I am not sure if posting them just gives the spammers a freebie, so I'm not going post the exact question without checking first. Spambots generally struggle with this kind of thing because they're just programmed to fill in the registration forms.

You see, this is how computers will eventually develop consciousness and self-awareness. As programs come along that help them surmount these hurdles, one day they'll cross the line. Then we're doomed.

[Indian]

The current crop of "watch" spammers who post links to movies and tv things online are a significant increase of anything I've seen as a mod for 10 years.

I think they're real, live, people, usually from India, and it's similar to trying to defeat the Viet Cong. If a population exists that is willing to throw their bodies into the fray, without regard to the consequences, they can outlast you for generations. You can't win. All you can do is hope to contain the spread.

I have suggested(not totally in jest), that we ban all IPs from India. That would do it. But, unfortunately, we have posters from India who aren't spammers.

Hey, I am not a spammer and I am in fact the mister nice guy from India.;)

Yes, mods have explained that I sit in a spammers's haven and that is why I get IP-banned occasionally.:D

[Covered_In_Bees!]

I recently joined a new message board (we're just friends, I swear!) and part of registration required I choose the "different" picture out of a 3x3 grid of images of ducks. Eight were the exact same picture and the remainder was obviously not.

Is this type of captcha more effective at all than the standard "type the word seen here"?

[Rhythmdvl]

Hey, I am not a spammer and I am in fact the mister nice guy from India.;)

Yes, mods have explained that I sit in a spammers's haven and that is why I get IP-banned occasionally.:D

Reported.






(d&r)

[Musicat]

I recently joined a new message board (we're just friends, I swear!) and part of registration required I choose the "different" picture out of a 3x3 grid of images of ducks. Eight were the exact same picture and the remainder was obviously not.

Is this type of captcha more effective at all than the standard "type the word seen here"?Sure, for a while. Then the spammers get wise and figure out how to get around the new stuff.

As more and more sites require captchas of various kinds there's been a rise of "semi-automated" bots, where the machines/programs are facilitated by real people to read captchas and solve puzzles. As long as there are useless assholes humans willing to deal in this kind of business spam will always be with us.My non-random sampling of spammers suggests that the latest crop is of Internet users who have a specific interest, subscribe to a service that trolls for keywords, alerts them, they register and post in an attempt to drive traffic to their commercial site. They might even post in the correct forum or relevant thread. It doesn't look like fully-automated spam, but some searching often turns up similar (but not identical) behavior in other message boards and blogs. Harder to defend against than previous schemes because they have a plausible purpose to post.

[Indian]

Reported.






(d&r)

:D:D

[Rick]

All of them were simple math questions. I am not sure if posting them just gives the spammers a freebie, so I'm not going post the exact question without checking first. Spambots generally struggle with this kind of thing because they're just programmed to fill in the registration forms.
No that isn't how to do it. This is the straight dope, the questions should be more like:
1. Calculate Pi to the last place
2. Create life. Show your work.

[Covered_In_Bees!]

No that isn't how to do it. This is the straight dope, the questions should be more like:
1. Calculate Pi to the last place
2. Create life. Show your work.

Shit. If this gets implemented everyone that's already a member gets grandfathered in, right?

[Indian]

No that isn't how to do it. This is the straight dope, the questions should be more like:
1. Calculate Pi to the last place
2. Create life. Show your work.

Or

Will the plane take off from a ........?

[BigT]

Perhaps, rather than banning all people from India, you could just make it a bit harder for Indians to join and then immediately post. Make their posts go to a delay or something. Or maybe just put a silent filter on any new Indian user's post that has a title that starts with "Watch," meaning they'll think it posted, but it will be invisible.

How many of these spammers will come back and see if their post ever actually posted? Just as long as it looks like it did, they'll probably just run off, secure in the false knowledge that some people will see it before it is taken down.

[Mangetout]

How about:

Any new member who posts a link before their post count reaches say, twenty, gets automatically suspended, pending review/appeal and their posts get automatically moved to the Valley Of The Mods. And make this limitation clear in the registration process.

Pretty sure vB can already do this. Slightly inconvenient for new members who want to link to a SD column (although the straightdope.com domain could be whitelisted), or who want to post an "identify this bug" or other legitimate off-board link, but I think it would be a reasonable tradeoff.

[BigT]

How about:

Any new member who posts a link before their post count reaches say, twenty, gets automatically suspended, pending review/appeal and their posts get automatically moved to the Valley Of The Mods. And make this limitation clear in the registration process.

Pretty sure vB can already do this. Slightly inconvenient for new members who want to link to a SD column (although the straightdope.com domain could be whitelisted), or who want to post an "identify this bug" or other legitimate off-board link, but I think it would be a reasonable tradeoff.
This sort of thing has been proposed before and the mods have come down against it. But maybe just implementing it on known spammer country IPs would work with a minimum of impact on anyone else.

Though I'd be sure that you give the user a warning as soon as they try it and giving them a chance to fix their post--relying on people reading the entire user agreement is faulty for bother legitimate users ans spammers. There are long term posters who wind up surprised at what the user agreement says.

I'm, of course, counting on the fact that spamming a URL modified to get through the filter would not serve the spammer's goal. Surely they are doing it to game search engines, and not because they think anyone here will click on their links.

[cochrane]

Casting them into a chasm does have a certain appeal.

And then we can throw shit on them, right?

[Edward The Head]

N
2. Create life. Show your work.

I'm not showing my work. I'm sure you can find that on the net for free anyway. I do have the cigaret to prove it though, and two cute girls.

[Cicero]

Just following on from above, could you ban IP's from India but exempt certain individual IP's- such as Indian?

[Darth Panda]

I think they're real, live, people, usually from India, and it's similar to trying to defeat the Viet Cong.

I'm pretty sure the Viet Cong weren't Indian, but I'll have to double check.


But, unfortunately, we have posters from India who aren't spammers.

What's unfortunate - that we have posters form India, or that they're not spammers?

[Simplicio]

Just following on from above, could you ban IP's from India but exempt certain individual IP's- such as Indian?

That would prevent future Indian posters though. And I like the fact that the Dope has an international population, I don't think I'd want to see a block on a sixth of the worlds population.

Plus, from a user perspective anyways, the current solution seems to be working well. I've noticed a few of the "Watch..." ads, but they've been disappeared by the mods pretty quickly. It hasn't really risen to a level of minor annoyance, so I don't see the need to take extraordinary measures.

[Indian]

Just following on from above, could you ban IP's from India but exempt certain individual IP's- such as Indian?


Make my a mod and I will vaporize these spammers, while you are still sleeping.;)

[Rhythmdvl]

What about an approval system for new posters’ first post?

I’m pretty sure this could be implemented, but it’s much too much of a PITA for the current set of mods. But can the board software allow for Mods of Incredibly Limited Functionality? The functionality/authority of the status would be limited to approving posts—you could practically hand them out like candy. The only real qualification you’d need to set is a pulse and maybe trivial longevity. The one rule (to ring them all) would be simple: only decline if it’s clearly spam. So absolutely no content-related declining would allowed, and any iffy posts get though for later reporting/judgement by a full-fledged mod.

Given enough MILFs, the lag time between new posts and approval would be very small. Look at the time difference between most spam being posted and reported. Plus, the new poster gets the ‘please wait while we make sure you’re not a clever spambot’ shows up after hitting submit. They’ll still see their posts.

When a poster hits submit on their first post, they’d get a “thanks for your post, it should show up shortly—usually within ten minutes.” Rejected posts would get a canned “Hi, Sorry to bother, but our filter system isn’t perfect—if you’re not a spambot, can you write back?” So real mods would get a small handful of appeals, much lower than the number of reports or spam they deal with now.

There is the drawback that if someoen’s first post is to an active thread it will be out of order. But the only threads where that would have a serious impact on the conversation are ‘need answer fast!’ and turn-based game threads. Perhaps the reduction in spam should make up for that?

Anyway, just an idea. Even if you assigned the status to just Runner Pat you’d have ninety percent of new posts taken care of within thirty seconds of their arrival. Whether it’s technologically feasible is another story.

[Marley23]

Perhaps, rather than banning all people from India, you could just make it a bit harder for Indians to join and then immediately post. Make their posts go to a delay or something.
We already have a "spam queue" system that catches suspicious posts and allows us to review them before they become visible to the rest of the board. I don't think we can apply that just to posters from any one region. It's made our lives easier but hasn't caught to many of these "Watch" guys. I assume that's because they change the content of their posts just enough to avoid the system.

How many of these spammers will come back and see if their post ever actually posted?
None. They'd be banned by then anyway.

Any new member who posts a link before their post count reaches say, twenty, gets automatically suspended, pending review/appeal and their posts get automatically moved to the Valley Of The Mods.
The spam queue does this to a small extent, but the problem with ideas like this is that it would strongly discourage new members from participating. I don't know how feasible it is technically either. Regardless, we do everything we can to stop spam and I think we do very well at it. But solutions that would frustrate new members don't seem worth the cost.

Just following on from above, could you ban IP's from India but exempt certain individual IP's- such as Indian?
I don't think we can do bans that way - block all IPs in this range except these ones - and increased use of non-static IP addresses makes it tougher to ban spammers who are in proximity to posters. But at this rate, yeah, we may end up banning everything in India except indian and a handful of other people. :p

[Nunzio Tavulari]

Does anyone know if Indian knows how to operate a drone aircraft? We can make him responsible for his own destiny.

[TubaDiva]

You see, this is how computers will eventually develop consciousness and self-awareness. As programs come along that help them surmount these hurdles, one day they'll cross the line. Then we're doomed.I expect they'll hook up with cats and help them get that opposable thumb thing worked out ... and can openers.

And then we are truly, truly screwed.

[Mangetout]

OK... how about...

Junior mods.

No, really - invite a posse of longstanding and trustworthy members to have the only the abilitiy to suspend obvious spammers and disappear their posts.

If they abuse this power, you kick their ass (in accordance with a regime similar to the existing warnings/suspension scheme) and restore the falsely-accused member and their posts.

[Rhythmdvl]

OK... how about...

Junior mods.

No, really - invite a posse of longstanding and trustworthy members to have the only the abilitiy to suspend obvious spammers and disappear their posts.

If they abuse this power, you kick their ass (in accordance with a regime similar to the existing warnings/suspension scheme) and restore the falsely-accused member and their posts.

I wish I thought of that :(


Or wait, maybe I'm posting from India...

[Mangetout]

I wish I thought of that :(


Or wait, maybe I'm posting from India...

Sorry - I genuinely overlooked your earlier, similar post - great minds think alike.

[Mangetout]

Having said that, I think a presumed-innocent approach would be better - so the spammers would get in, but almost immediately shut down - and legitimate new members would not be inconvenienced.

[DSeid]

And really, how much faster would that disappear these threads than reporting it does, and is the transient appearance of this spam so irritating that much more needs be done?

[Marley23]

Right, that's where you have to start considering the return on the energy invested. Spam sucks, but spam here gets dealt with very quickly on the whole, and as a result I don't think the posts that get through and disappear - often in a few minutes, sometimes a few hours overnight - are a big negative on the user experience. Stopping newbies from posting would be a bigger negative since it would likely keep some people from joining the board. As things are, I think the spam is a bigger inconvenience to the mods, and while we'd love to reduce that inconvenience, I don't think we want to do it by shifting it to users.

[Indian]

Do we have that many regular dopers from India?

[The Dord]

How about not having the ability to post hyperlinks as a new member until after a certain post threshold? Or do they space out their links so this couldn't happen?

[Mangetout]

...is the transient appearance of this spam so irritating that much more needs be done?

...As things are, I think the spam is a bigger inconvenience to the mods, and while we'd love to reduce that inconvenience, I don't think we want to do it by shifting it to users.

Certainly loading it on brand new members would be counterproductive, but a cohort of willing, responsible volunteers from within the membership could ease some of the mod inconvenience, leaving them better resourced to handle the more nuanced work.

[Siam Sam]

Having said that, I think a presumed-innocent approach would be better ...

There's also always something to be said for the "kill-'em-all-let-god-sort-'em-out" approach.

[samclem]

Do we have that many regular dopers from India?

We have just enough posters and readers to prevent nuking you guys from orbit. :p

[samclem]

How about not having the ability to post hyperlinks as a new member until after a certain post threshold? Or do they space out their links so this couldn't happen?

WE've been over this in multiple threads. Not a viable option.

[Marley23]

They'll spam us about something else next week, but I'll be sort of glad when this boxing match is in the rear view mirror.

[bldysabba]

Apologies for my countrymen, but they're just the symptom innit? I'm guessing it's being outsourced like a lot of other grunt work. Some of the tech enabled solutions to slow down new posters from India sound like a good idea, except that besides being the source of spam, India also happens to have a relatively massive (untapped) demographic that the Dope could benefit from. It's a potential market. The junior modding idea sounds like a good one. Ask for volunteers, and get in a bunch of spam busters. Add a multiple choice "Reason for reporting" and all the spam that's reported could even go only to them, while everything else comes to the regular mods.