# Spam prevention question **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [December 31, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670 "2012-12-31T15:45:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/21 "2013-01-01T21:20:09Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > It sounds to me as if the admins need to recruit a few more mods, and also look into getting some spam detection software. I think that the software has helped us a LOT, because we seem to get far fewer spammers. I’ll sometimes catch a spammer who is active, but the post won’t show up. The spammer tries to edit the post, in order to get it to show up. Then I come along and drop the banhammer. It’s a very satisfying feeling, something like squishing a mosquito just as she bites you. Before we got the software, a spammer might be able to put a visible post in each open forum. Even if the horse board doesn’t want the software, though, getting at least two more more mods in would probably help a lot. It’s very discouraging to sit down, go to the boards, and realize that you need to get rid of all this shit. Yeah, I think more hands is probably what’s needed. It sounds like they do have a basic filter, but they get overwhelmed. Mod1 put up a brainstorming post for weed-out questions etc, and this is part of a reply after it had been up a few days: > [@](#): > > I’m not sure if the system will easily allow us to show a picture for identification as a question, but that’s a great idea. The “which one does not belong” questions would also be a great format. We can even do it with really basic terms that should be beginner-friendly, but that wouldn’t normally be posed in a question in that format, so you couldn’t just plug it into Google to get the answer (like they’re doing now). > > One of the current systems we use scans every post made by users with under three posts and if they have various spam characteristics, the posts are held offline for our approval. Problem is, there’s a TON of them, so while it’s great for keeping a lot of spam off of the forum, we spend way too much time mindlessly deleting these posts and accounts (if I let it go for not even a day, I can spend an hour just deleting bogus accounts). So part of the motivation for this thread is selfish – it’ll save me a ton of time if we can keep these suckers from ever making it through the registration process! Some people have volunteered for spam duty, but I’m not sure how that will fly, that level of admin access is pretty broad I gather, and there are some wackos and control freaks out there. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/22 "2013-01-01T21:30:49Z")
> [@saje](#): > > How do you guys keep the spam level to such a dull roar? Is it that there are multitudes of you behind the scenes deleting stuff? There’s two kinds of spammers; bots and humans. You have to stop them from registering. If they sneak through, you have to stop their posts from appearing. The most notorious bot is xRumer, the newest version of which can solve captchas, ReCaptcha, and many questions like “What color is the sky?” and “What is 12 + 6?” Stopping the bots is easy; the right kind of human verification questions. I use fill-in-the-blank style questions from popular culture, among others (“The Rolling \_\_\_\_\_\_\_”), geography questions like “Name a large city in Texas that is NOT Dallas, Houston or Austin”, and the like. Human spammers tend to come from certain counties; India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh are the most notorious, but there’s a growing number of others like Poland, Vietnam, and Indonesia that tend to have a high ratio of spammers to legitimate users. I use a plugin that move users that register from selected countries and known proxies into a moderation queue. I’ll check the queue daily. The spammers are easy to pick out; inconsistent information (location in “US newyark”, IP in India), butchered Anglo names (“Smith Robbert”), usernames that show up as a new user on hundreds of other boards, and so on. I also use the Stop Forum Spam plugin, that compares the IPs of new users with a regularly updated database of known forum spammers. This catches most bots, and many humans. I also have a blacklist of keywords commonly found in spammer usernames and email addresses, trouble-prone free email domains ([mail.ru](http://mail.ru), [potcha.ru](http://potcha.ru), [126.com](http://126.com), etc), and disposable email addresses ([mailinator.com](http://mailinator.com), etc.). For those that get through, usually from a Web host in the US, Canada or western Europe that’s being used as a proxy, I use a plugin that moderates posts that contains URLs or certain keywords from new users. I have even more spam prevention measures, but I’m reluctant to reveal them here. What I described above will stop most forum spammers on a vBulletin site, though. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/23 "2013-01-01T21:39:13Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > If we could only ban the IP of the AOL equivalent in India, we’d probably all be out of a job. 😃 Airtel Broadband. Airtel. Fucking. Broadband. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/24 "2013-01-01T21:41:55Z")
Another tip: get **runner pat** to join your board. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/25 "2013-01-01T21:54:59Z")
> [@saje](#): > > Yes, that’s what I meant. A random picture of basic horse related equipment or activity. If it’s not a stock photo from an online catalog, or labeled in any way, it should be pretty hard to search even using the image-search function. I figured you meant that but you were not clear. So how would you address people with disabilities who might want to join? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/26 "2013-01-01T21:56:18Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > I figured you meant that but you were not clear. > > So how would you address people with disabilities who might want to join? Option for audio clue for the blind. ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/27 "2013-01-01T22:03:50Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > The most notorious bot is xRumer, the newest version of which can solve captchas, ReCaptcha, and many questions like “What color is the sky?” and “What is 12 + 6?” Stopping the bots is easy; the right kind of human verification questions. I use fill-in-the-blank style questions from popular culture, among others (“The Rolling \_\_\_\_\_\_\_”), geography questions like “Name a large city in Texas that is NOT Dallas, Houston or Austin”, and the like. Is your horse board international? If so, be careful of your questions. I had to think about that Texas question for a while before I thought of San Antonio (it’s large, isn’t it?). ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/28 "2013-01-02T02:33:57Z")
Elmwood, I’m very impressed. Nothing and no one gets by you, obviously. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/29 "2013-01-02T14:21:58Z")
Not always, **Tuba**. A couple of weeks ago, someone wrote to ask to register an account manually. They had an IP in Bulgaria that was in the Stop Forum Spam database. Spammers usually don’t go through such an effort to register, so I created the account. Three normal posts over two weeks, and then a post with a link to some German university foreign exchange site, which landed in the moderation queue. I found a bunch of other posts around the Internet with similar posts, all worded just a bit differently, under different usernames. Banhammer. I run a smaller board, and don’t have the staff to manually research new users or clear spam. Thus, I have to take more preventative action, and stop the spammers from registering to begin with, even if it means the rare false positive. Thus, SFS, the various email and keyword blacklists, and other means of stopping spammers from creating accounts. A couple of years ago, when I installed the Stop Forum Spam plugin, its logs revealed the ratio of attempted spammer registrations to legitimate new users was about 2:1. A couple of months ago, it was closer to 100:1. Some Chinese bots would make over 10,000 attempts to register, hammering away once a second for an entire afternoon. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/30 "2013-01-02T14:33:17Z")
> [@Canadjun](#): > > Is your horse board international? If so, be careful of your questions. I had to think about that Texas question for a while before I thought of San Antonio (it’s large, isn’t it?). Most “link builders” come from developing nations outside of the Anglosphere, mainly India and Pakistan. My message board caters mainly to English speakers in Anglosphere countries. I try to use human verification questions that shouldn’t be too hard for those in Anglosphere countries (US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) to answer, but which might be a bit trickier for those in non-Western cultures. If someone from India wanted in badly enough, and didn’t know what would fill in the blank of “Monty Python and the Holy \_\_\_\_\_\_\_”, they’d Google for an answer. Most human spammers don’t have the patience, and move on to easier targets. I don’t worry about losing potential legitimate users from India, Pakistan, and so on. Most legit users from those countries either never post, or make just one or two mediocre posts and never return. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/31 "2013-01-03T09:34:05Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Again, that’s the problem. Most of them use the largest two internet providers in India. We have quite a few legit members from India. We have many more who lurk and read. > > If they were very narrow static IPs, we’d do it. They’re not. There’re quite a few banned IPs though, and I wish you guys wouldn’t do that. All the IPs are dynamic, and I can never access the board from outside my university. At the very least, allow people to read the board, if not post? > [@elmwood](#): > > Airtel Broadband. Airtel. Fucking. Broadband. Yeah, that’s the one my parents use. I can never access the board from there. > [@elmwood](#): > > Most “link builders” come from developing nations outside of the Anglosphere, mainly India and Pakistan. > > I don’t worry about losing potential legitimate users from India, Pakistan, and so on. Most legit users from those countries either never post, or make just one or two mediocre posts and never return. Where do the people who hire these guys to post spam come from eh? ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/32 "2013-01-03T14:18:03Z")
The next time you’re in these locations go to this site: > **[What Is My IP?](https://www.whatismyip.com/)** > > Check the IP address assigned to your device. Show my IP city, state, and country. What Is An IP Address? IPv4, IPv6, public IP explained. Note the IP number you get from that location. Send those numbers to me at [tubadiva@straightdope.com](mailto:tubadiva@straightdope.com) and I’ll see what we can do regarding a workaround. We do not want spammers, of course, but we also don’t want to make this impossible for legitimate users neither. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/33 "2013-01-03T14:53:10Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > Where do the people who hire these guys to post spam come from eh? All over the world. The small businesses that hire “link builders” usually don’t know they’re spamming on their behalf. The companies promote Google juice through SEO (search engine optimization), and often promise that links will be relevant and non-spammy. They’re usually not expecting the Indians, Pakistanis or Filipinos they hired to make thousands of forum and blog posts like … [QUOTE=smith jon] i am thanking you for your informative post i am looking forward to reading more please – brisbane queensland carpet best rug cleaners steam clean shampoo [/quote] Not all forum spam appears in posts. A growing number is through profile links and visitor messages. There’s a LOT of spam hiding in SDMB in user profiles; for example, [the contact information here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php). Even though SDMB member profiles aren’t visible to those who aren’t logged in, member profiles on many other boards are open to search engines. That’s why I think it’s important not just to stop spammers from posting, but to keep them from _registering_. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/34 "2013-01-03T15:37:57Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > There’s a LOT of spam hiding in SDMB in user profiles; for example, [the contact information here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php). I’ve banned that poster and deleted ‘his’ contact info, but for the record, his profile contained a link to a site that sells ovens. I’ve never been sure if these guys are using their profile to spam or if they just register and don’t get around to posting. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/35 "2013-01-03T17:05:12Z")
**Marley** and **Tuba** … 1. Go to the vBulletin administrator control panel. 2. Click on _Users_, then _Search for Users_. 3. Scroll down to the “Advanced search” area. 4. Under “Web site”, enter http:// alone. 5. Enter “1” in the “Posts are less than” field. 6. Under “Display options”, click “Yes” for “Display Web site” 7. Scroll down and click the _Find_ button. 8. Prepare to be shocked. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/36 "2013-01-03T17:10:37Z")
It’s going to take a lot more than that, **elmwood**. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/37 "2013-01-04T08:59:38Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > The small businesses that hire “link builders” usually don’t know they’re spamming on their behalf. Who’re the link builders then? Focus some of your righteousness at the right people, is all I’m saying. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/38 "2013-01-04T16:39:41Z")
In the “now I’ve seen everything” category, we just banned someone spamming for a Gastroenterology program in London.:dubious: Seems if you’re in the market for a gastroenterologist you’re going to do a little more research than clicking on a spam link. Next up is probably brain cancer spam. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/39 "2013-01-04T17:49:24Z")
That’s a headshaker for sure. ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670/40 "2013-01-04T18:28:17Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > In the “now I’ve seen everything” category, we just banned someone spamming for a Gastroenterology program in London.:dubious: > > Seems if you’re in the market for a gastroenterologist you’re going to do a little more research than clicking on a spam link. > > Next up is probably brain cancer spam. Is that for people looking for a gastroenterologist or for people wanting to **be** a gastroenterologist? If the latter, will they teach me how to be one over the Internet? :D:D:D [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-prevention-question/645670.md?page=3)