spammers are back

Undertoad • Oct 1, 2008 10:42 pm
It appears pretty clear that they have "broken" the code for the CAPTCHA graphic that we use to prevent spam. Six spammers caught by moderation today.

I have added a new question to the registration questions:

What is four plus five?

They have to answer 9, or they can't register. The default is 2.

This may help prevent robots from filling out the registration.

Please let me know if you are required to fill this out in the user CP. I just did mine and I had to fill it out. This is not what the setting suggested.
SamIam • Oct 1, 2008 10:56 pm
It made me answer the question when I went into my profile. Damned spammer. ;)
xoxoxoBruce • Oct 1, 2008 11:09 pm
I knocked off 4 Russians today. :shotgun:
It did let me go to my user cp, without a challenge, but probably because I'd already logged into the Mod area, earlier.
Undertoad • Oct 1, 2008 11:11 pm
Damn. Well this is not what the setting suggested, so it must be broken, do y'all mind filling this out for the time being?

Or I can spend money on upgrading the software, which has a potential fix to this, before upgrading the hardware...
xoxoxoBruce • Oct 1, 2008 11:14 pm
How often do people go to the user cp?
Clodfobble • Oct 1, 2008 11:15 pm
It didn't bother me when I opened my User CP...
jinx • Oct 1, 2008 11:17 pm
didn't ask me
xoxoxoBruce • Oct 1, 2008 11:29 pm
vBulletin is smart, it knows who the shady ones are. :lol2:
Undertoad • Oct 1, 2008 11:31 pm
OK I did change another part of the settings which may have fixed the User CP asking this question.
lumberjim • Oct 2, 2008 12:13 am
when i went into my user cp,


.... it called me a cock.
xoxoxoBruce • Oct 2, 2008 12:37 am
And a fur salesman, with a spamming rap sheet a mile long, from Panama, claiming he was from Switzerland. :rolleyes:
lumberjim • Oct 2, 2008 12:41 am
spamming rap sheet? euphemism, or .....?
Undertoad • Oct 2, 2008 8:12 am
The problem of having to answer this question in the User Profile is fixed.

The setting is helping. Glancing at the vBulletin support boards, we are in the company of many, many forums around the world.
xoxoxoBruce • Oct 2, 2008 8:16 am
Russia, Latvia, et al, seem to be making an effort to reclaim their place, after the surge from the Chinese... and one persistent prick from Panama. :haha:
gvidas • Aug 12, 2010 6:44 pm
Interesting article about how spammers solve CAPTCHAs.

But the inventors of CAPTCHAS probably didn't anticipate this: Hundreds, possibly thousands of laborers working for less than $50 a month to solve an endless stream of CAPTCHAS delivered to them by automated middlemen who sell the results to spammers in real time,[...]

[...]The system is so efficient at delivering CAPTCHAS to workers in these remote locales that the average time for delivery of a solution hovers around 20 seconds.
Flint • Aug 12, 2010 7:25 pm
Undertoad;488890 wrote:


Please let me know if you are required to fill this out in the user CP. I just did mine and I had to fill it out. This is not what the setting suggested.
I went into CP and as far as "Edit Email & Password' and was never prompted.

Edit: Of course I am running IE7 on an XP Pro SP3 box, so with this "oddball" system I can see how the behavior might be unpredictable.
gvidas • Aug 12, 2010 7:53 pm
Sorry for the confusion, Flint, but I bumped up a thread from a few years ago partly on the grounds that it was the most recent and relevant-looking place to stick that tidbit about CAPTCHAs. And partly on the grounds that I wasn't paying much attention.
Flint • Aug 12, 2010 7:58 pm
GODDAMN YOU AND YOUR THREAD-BUMPING SHENANIGANS!!!1
classicman • Aug 13, 2010 10:37 am
Alt Text: 6 Ways Procrastinators Can Accomplish Nothing More Effectively
1. Avoid RSS

RSS is a virus, unleashed by shadowy pro-work forces to cut procrastinators off at the knees. It seems like a great idea: Keep up with even more sites than before! But what happens when you discover that your feed has no updates? Even if it’s just for a few minutes, this creates a dangerous gap in your defenses through which responsibility can enter. Stick with bookmarks that you can check obsessively one by one.

Read More

Found that a lil funny - Exactly what UT was tellin ya.