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'Ethical Spammers' Spamming up the wiki.
Posted: 31 Oct 2005, 07:37
by Maelstrom
In the last 12 hours, the Wiki has been hit by automated spammers. THey call themselfs the 'Ethical Spammer Group'. They are 'Ethical' because they dont actually remove the information in the page, rather they just add the links in to the page in an invisible <div> box. They linked to the usual 'Free Medications without a perscription' junk.
Examples of their Spam:
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/w/index.php ... &rcid=1608
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/w/index.php ... &rcid=1604
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/w/index.php ... oldid=1383
Their IP address was 86.120.197.66
Thanks to Sinbadev and an annonymous IP address (Possibly Sinbadev again) for cleaning it up.
Also, can I request that this IP address is baned, to stop this happening again.
Posted: 31 Oct 2005, 07:57
by SinbadEV
one of them wasn't me...
Posted: 31 Oct 2005, 08:40
by [K.B.] Napalm Cobra
Another good reason to make them registration only.
Posted: 31 Oct 2005, 09:14
by SwiftSpear
adding clutter to out of date wiki's is ethical how?
Posted: 31 Oct 2005, 12:10
by Tim Blokdijk
SinbadEV wrote:one of them wasn't me...
I'm 80.56.144.185 don't alway's log in.
Posted: 31 Oct 2005, 13:14
by Maelstrom
Ah ok. Didnt know who it was. Just thought it might have been Sinbadev cause, he did some of it to. Thanks for cleaning it up!
Posted: 31 Oct 2005, 18:04
by FizWizz
spamming 'cheap drugs without prescriptions' scams are ethical how?
Posted: 01 Nov 2005, 05:46
by Maelstrom
They were back again. This time, as well as posting links to the drugs, they also posted addresses to what I assume was porn. Different IP this time, (85.186.34.131), however they seem to only target the Main Page, Current Events, and Help:Contents pages. Perhaps these can be locked somehow, with only autorised users able to edit them?
Posted: 01 Nov 2005, 08:58
by [K.B.] Napalm Cobra
Pr0n? I a stand corrected and demand no logins required!
Posted: 01 Nov 2005, 14:04
by clericvash
[K.B.] Napalm Cobra wrote:Pr0n? I a stand corrected and demand no logins required!
lol someone had to...wey for pr0n...WEY!!!!
Posted: 01 Nov 2005, 16:52
by Fnordia
Ok, I switched the wiki to only allow editing by registered users, can let it stay like that for a while I guess.
Perhaps I could also bestow some admin powers to a few users to make it easier to undo stuff like this. The rollback feature is quite handy but since I'm the only one who uses it I guess it requires some extra privilegies? :)
Posted: 01 Nov 2005, 19:51
by SinbadEV
nah... I just find it safer to manually edit them... more time consuming but I get a chance to double check the content while I'm at it... most real contributers are registered anyways at this point and it will help cause sometimes I update while I have forgotted to log-in.
Posted: 02 Nov 2005, 05:26
by Maelstrom
Granting some people admin would be helpful though. Just to clean things up. There are LOTS of usless pages that have basicly no content, that would be good candidates for deletion. And there are about 4 pages all redirecting to the 'Create maps' page, which seems a little usless to me. So, some users with upgraded powers in the wiki would be a very good idea, as long as they are sensible.
Posted: 03 Nov 2005, 22:44
by Fnordia
Well since it looks like you two contribute and fix stuff regularly in the wiki I can give you sysop privilegies if you want.
Posted: 03 Nov 2005, 22:53
by SinbadEV
I'm happy to be sysop as long as I'm not expected to do more just because I can. (I check the recent changes everyday anyways, I might as well be one right?)
edit: and trust worthy too... I always forget that kind of thing.
Posted: 04 Nov 2005, 00:36
by Caydr
Registration is a good first step, but what prevents these hosers from just registering AND THEN adding all their spam?
Posted: 04 Nov 2005, 01:28
by Dwarden
registration need validation code to prevent bot autoregistering
and email validation system after ...
also link registration to forum registration ... so u need be registered on both to get it work ... that blocks bots and they got tired do it manually aftersome time ...
also ... there is new phpBB version out and even after that i got info there is new security hole affecting new build too ... great
Posted: 04 Nov 2005, 05:33
by Maelstrom
Id be happy to have more power. I wont do to much more, but the ABILITY to do more will be welcome.
And as for bots having to register to post, that really does put a dent in the amount of spam we will get. And if a bot can register, log in THEN post, then I think they deserve to leave spam, just cause of the amount of effort that would have been needed to do that.
Posted: 04 Nov 2005, 08:37
by Dwarden
what about forum account with more than 10-25 posts gets permission edit wiki ...
so u get double registration with generated code check + email validation + forum posting ... owned :)
Posted: 04 Nov 2005, 08:40
by Maelstrom
Do you have any idea how hard that would be to implement? Do you even know how these forums and the wiki work? I think that combining the login info of the two would be really hard, and im certain the SY's have better things to do. The current system is fine. If bots start spamming it up, then i guess some of these options might be considered. But untill then, going that far is not really neccesary.