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New Spam Countermeasure

Submitted by LutherVKane on Mon, 05/12/2014 - 20:50
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I've implemented a new antispam technique. Initial trials have been promising, but there is the potential to block legitimate users.

Recently there's been a huge surge in spam attempts. For the past month or so, I've been seeing about ten times the normal volume. This has the potential to be problematic if left unchecked.

User Registration Back Online

Submitted by LutherVKane on Wed, 06/05/2013 - 13:18
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Let's hope the spammers don't evolve too quickly.

New User Registration Temporarily Offline

Submitted by LutherVKane on Tue, 06/04/2013 - 17:30
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I've disabled the creation of new user accounts due to an issue with the spam filter. I'll re-enable it once I've got the problem worked out.

Spam

Submitted by LutherVKane on Thu, 04/25/2013 - 17:11
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One thing that completely blindsided me when I switched the site to Drupal was the spam problem. I never needed an anti-spam system when I used CPG-Nuke. It was rare enough that I could handle it manually.

Within a week of the site revamp, I was seeing about 50 fake user registrations per day. I installed the Mollom module for Drupal, and it's been a lifesaver. Yesterday it blocked over 700 spam attempts.

Spam, En Masse

Submitted by LutherVKane on Tue, 01/03/2012 - 18:37
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We've had spambots registring users on this site pretty much from day one of the relaunch. On average, we're blocking close to a hundred spam registrations per day. To put that in perspective: the number of users rejected in the past four months exceeds the total number of registered users.

The good news is the spam filter seems to be pretty darned good at blocking fake users. But I still want to look into better ways of stopping such things. In all likelihood, it's only going to get worse. Might as well get a head start on it.

User Registration Update

Submitted by LutherVKane on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 01:44
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I've added a spam filter to the user registration form.  I'm going to leave it be for a few days to see how well it works.  If it blocks most of the fake registrations (which have accelerated to ~50/day) then I'll disable the requirement that accounts be approved by an administrator.

If it fails, then I may have to rely on CAPTCHAs.  And I really don't want to do that.  I've always found them annoying.

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