Fighting spammers

flamelab · 2010-09-27 08:11:18

Pierre wrote:

If it were just that easy...they use ips, email and urls mostly only once.
Edit: Just had to delete a new spammer. He first tried with Windows and then switched to Ubuntu (obviously to enter the Bash script). He spent about 5 minutes to update his spam signature. I wonder how much those people are paid that it worth this effort.
I'll probably add some more variations to the "captcha". On the other hand I'll improve the tools to detect such spam. If there is only one per week that would be acceptable. (10min for them to spam us; one click for us to delete their account is still a good balance)

Hmm,is it possible that the "captcha" would also have pacman related commands ? That would need an archlinux installation present for the spammer.

But that would too much if the newcomer is on Ubuntu and want to ask for Arch, for example....

Last edited by flamelab (2010-09-27 08:12:11)

karol · 2010-09-27 09:42:11

ngoonee wrote:

Pierre wrote:
Edit: Just had to delete a new spammer. He first tried with Windows and then switched to Ubuntu (obviously to enter the Bash script). He spent about 5 minutes to update his spam signature. I wonder how much those people are paid that it worth this effort.
More importantly, how knowledgeable the person must be to know what a bash script is and how it should be run....
THE MONGOLS ARE COMING!!!
Damn this is scary in a way.

Actually they may be more like Hernan Cortes - The Conquistador of the Aztecs: technically superior, set on a quest to enslave the barbarians ;P

karol · 2010-09-27 09:44:10

flamelab wrote:

Hmm,is it possible that the "captcha" would also have pacman related commands ? That would need an archlinux installation present for the spammer.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 25#p827125

dbdb · 2010-11-20 00:44:02

I, my first post here!
I'm totally new to Arch, just 5 day whit it on second machine built for arch!
i'm from windzoz world, i have tried register 3 times on 3 day, no way!
no problem was the wiki to read set up system (rc.config, .inittab .xinitrc,) set up flags on compilers
and read read read, so tonight i have everything as I will from boot to WM, I decided to solve login Question
Honestly wasn't so hard, and above all taught me how to put, make executable and run etc. ....
Furthermore, I find unbearable (especially administration side) spammers
the idea is effective, but it seems to me totally incorrect and absolutely not open, THE absolute prohibition to register (alias of communicate, share knowledge, learn, ask)
everyone without distinction, with the guilt of not have a unix system in his hands!
unfortunately I have no solutions to propose, therefore I express my opinion.

tigrezno · 2010-12-06 12:16:07

dbdb wrote:

I, my first post here!
I'm totally new to Arch, just 5 day whit it on second machine built for arch!
i'm from windzoz world, i have tried register 3 times on 3 day, no way!
no problem was the wiki to read set up system (rc.config, .inittab .xinitrc,) set up flags on compilers
and read read read, so tonight i have everything as I will from boot to WM, I decided to solve login Question
Honestly wasn't so hard, and above all taught me how to put, make executable and run etc. ....
Furthermore, I find unbearable (especially administration side) spammers
the idea is effective, but it seems to me totally incorrect and absolutely not open, THE absolute prohibition to register (alias of communicate, share knowledge, learn, ask)
everyone without distinction, with the guilt of not have a unix system in his hands!
unfortunately I have no solutions to propose, therefore I express my opinion.

I tried registering today an account from windows. It's just impossible.
Worst captcha I've ever seen in the internet.

My 2cents

Pierre · 2010-12-06 12:26:39

Sure, that was the idea. The collateral damage is minimal as we are not targeting to Windows users.

mir · 2010-12-06 12:28:40

Oh, there's a service that provides true random data. It requires solving simple differential equations as captcha

dbdb · 2010-12-08 17:58:03

Pierre wrote:

Sure, that was the idea. The collateral damage is minimal as we are not targeting to Windows users.

Right, if this is true, put on register page "Not for Windows user"

Last edited by dbdb (2010-12-08 18:24:13)

cvillelk · 2011-01-01 01:08:54

This question is broken as of Jan-1 (UTC). Please see https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=111007 for details.

o1iver · 2011-01-16 12:44:42

Although I understand what the point of the question is I must say that it may scare off some people. I just registered and since I am on Mac (not for much longer...) I had to start a linux vm, type in the command and then pastebin the output because copy/paste from the vm doesnt work.

I know that anybody with some terminal experience will have no problems solving this (although if you are not on linux its a pain). But what about the person that hasn't really used linux much or wants to join the forums from a win machine (maybe ar work...)? I know Arch is more for advanced users, but do you really want to scare them off?

Last edited by o1iver (2011-01-16 12:45:12)

Pierre · 2011-01-16 14:03:24

ATM I don't know any better solution. But I am open for suggestions of course. I think the challenge is easy enough to solve on a Linux system (just copy&paste). It should even be solvable on any other UNIX system with minimal effort. And in a worst case the people on IRC should be able to help.

And do you really think that people who are scared off by a bash command would want to use Arch?

However: If you know any question that is easy to answer for our audience but hard for the average spammer, let me know.

ngoonee · 2011-01-16 14:12:47

Pierre wrote:

And do you really think that people who are scared off by a bash command would want to use Arch?

I'd go further. They might WANT to use Arch, but they shouldn't. They would most likely not contribute, and likely-as-not would be help vamps.

karol · 2011-01-16 14:23:53

ngoonee wrote:

Pierre wrote:
And do you really think that people who are scared off by a bash command would want to use Arch?
I'd go further. They might WANT to use Arch, but they shouldn't. They would most likely not contribute, and likely-as-not would be help vamps.

+1

Getting a Linux distro is a requirement for joining, a token. I remember helping people here with "post you logs", posting some wiki url etc. while using another distro and the same can be done from Windows/Mac, but that token of Linux prowess is a threshold that hopefully keeps the level of discussion on the forums relatively high.
We don't ban Windows/Mac users from joining in, we just give them a little test for starters. If the run away scared, that's fine :-)

o1iver · 2011-01-16 16:06:51

And do you really think that people who are scared off by a bash command would want to use Arch?

Fair enough...my bad!

lie2815 · 2011-01-16 17:04:11

karol wrote:

Getting a Linux distro is a requirement for joining, a token.

What if ArchLinux is their first distro and, say, they have some question or problem regarding installation?

karol · 2011-01-16 17:14:46

lie2815 wrote:

karol wrote:
Getting a Linux distro is a requirement for joining, a token.
What if ArchLinux is their first distro and, say, they have some question or problem regarding installation?

The thing is, ArchLinux is probably not the best choice for a first distro. If they can't use a liveCD/USB they may have a problem.

There are many general Linux forums, so he can try to ask for help there. Once he's got all the basics covered he should be able to take care of his Arch mostly by himself :-)

Last edited by karol (2011-01-16 17:18:13)

o1iver · 2011-01-16 17:37:51

What if ArchLinux is their first distro and, say, they have some question or problem regarding installation?

Like karol said...shouldnt be the first one. And since there is no way you could even install arch without some terminal experience the question isnt that bad.

However it is still a problem for people who want to register from a windows computer (maybe from work...).

karol · 2011-01-16 17:41:47

o1iver wrote:

However it is still a problem for people who want to register from a windows computer (maybe from work...).

You pick a Linux liveCD, register and go back to YourOtherOS.

o1iver · 2011-01-16 22:11:18

You pick a Linux liveCD, register and go back to YourOtherOS.

I know you can do it... no doubt about it. I am just saying it is not ideal, but then again I don't have a better idea so I am just gonna shut up :-p

loafer · 2011-01-17 20:32:02

o1iver wrote:

You pick a Linux liveCD, register and go back to YourOtherOS.
I know you can do it... no doubt about it. I am just saying it is not ideal, but then again I don't have a better idea so I am just gonna shut up :-p

I suppose you could install Cygwin on the Windows PC.

MonolithImmortal · 2011-01-29 16:57:28

After reading this thread I am reminded of XKCD's "constructive" comic.
http://xkcd.com/810/

kynikos · 2011-02-13 18:06:01

Lately I've started orienting myself in the Recent Changes page, to try to help recognize spam or vandalism, and yesterday I noticed and had to undo a spamming edit submitted by a completely trustworthy user with quite a long story of useful contributions: he wasn't aware at all of that edit, so his account password had probably been discovered by a bot, or he did the edit from a windows client infected with a spamming worm...

What I'm trying to say is that the fight to spam and vandalism shouldn't stop at registration time, but we should discuss a way to promptly recognize spam/vandalistic edits using the recent changes page and evaluating article diffs: I think that we should organize a (multilanguage) team in which each user takes the responsibility of regularly checking a specific group of pages in the Recent Changes page: I think the grouping could simply be based on alphabetical criteria, for example, if the team was composed of 26 users, each could take a different letter and daily check all articles in the recent changes page that start with that letter. Of course, if the team was composed of more users, the articles could be assigned based on the first 2 letters and so on.
Checking for spam or vandalism should be very quick and easy, and based on human judgement, it shouldn't mean also checking for other kinds of problems, like typos, coding errors etc. which would take much more time.
The Arch wiki is not Wikipedia, the number of changes per day is not so high, so even checking 2 or 3 letters per user (in case there are a few users or we want to overlap users' checking areas) would be quite easy, though very useful to the community, especially as it progressively grows over time.

A very nice thing to do in relation to such a system, would be to improve the filtering possibilities in the Recent Changes page, to let users filter changes by the article name: supporting regular expressions could become useful if we wanted to assign the pages also based on their language, which is usually appended at the end of the name. Even better would be the personalization of RSS/Atom feeds.

I believe this could be a great improvement with a little effort, it would just need a bit of organization, what do you think?

karol · 2011-02-13 18:15:01

@ kynikos
I try to monitor the changes as time allows. I have so far reported a few spammers.
The 'Recent changes' feed: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?tit … &feed=atom has, according to Google Reader, 471 posts per week and 29 subscribers so you are correct about the 2-3 posts per subscriber per day. I don't know how many people check the 'Recent changes' wiki page.

kynikos · 2011-02-13 18:30:13

@ karol
If you have read well, the problem is not limited to spammers, or spamming accounts, I've reported an example of a trustworthy account which has been probably used by a spambot, this is the link of my undo and the list of that user's contributions.

Your research on Google Reader is very useful, and it proves the fact that with just a bit of organization we could ensure a team of "antispam/vandalism" users, instead of just hoping that "somebody else is also doing it".

I could even start making the team subscription list here, then it could be moved to the wiki itself, in a proper page; it could be something like this (the wiki username should be used, if different from the one on the forum):

1. kynikos [A-M]
2. karol [N-Z]

litemotiv · 2011-02-13 18:32:44

kynikos wrote:

I believe this could be a great improvement with a little effort, it would just need a bit of organization, what do you think?

Interesting idea, it could certainly be worthwhile provided you can find a few competent people to help out. I would advise to start a new thread for this and see if you can attract some people to join in.

Arch Linux

#76 2010-09-27 08:11:18

Re: Fighting spammers

#77 2010-09-27 09:42:11

Re: Fighting spammers

#78 2010-09-27 09:44:10

Re: Fighting spammers

#79 2010-11-20 00:44:02

Re: Fighting spammers

#80 2010-12-06 12:16:07

Re: Fighting spammers

#81 2010-12-06 12:26:39

Re: Fighting spammers

#82 2010-12-06 12:28:40

Re: Fighting spammers

#83 2010-12-08 17:58:03

Re: Fighting spammers

#84 2011-01-01 01:08:54

Re: Fighting spammers

#85 2011-01-16 12:44:42

Re: Fighting spammers

#86 2011-01-16 14:03:24

Re: Fighting spammers

#87 2011-01-16 14:12:47

Re: Fighting spammers

#88 2011-01-16 14:23:53

Re: Fighting spammers

#89 2011-01-16 16:06:51

Re: Fighting spammers

#90 2011-01-16 17:04:11

Re: Fighting spammers

#91 2011-01-16 17:14:46

Re: Fighting spammers

#92 2011-01-16 17:37:51

Re: Fighting spammers

#93 2011-01-16 17:41:47

Re: Fighting spammers

#94 2011-01-16 22:11:18

Re: Fighting spammers

#95 2011-01-17 20:32:02

Re: Fighting spammers

#96 2011-01-29 16:57:28

Re: Fighting spammers

#97 2011-02-13 18:06:01

Re: Fighting spammers

#98 2011-02-13 18:15:01

Re: Fighting spammers

#99 2011-02-13 18:30:13

Re: Fighting spammers

#100 2011-02-13 18:32:44

Re: Fighting spammers

Board footer