ばか！バカ！　馬鹿ー月！

Lery wrote:You're right, they are still registering but still not able to post anything.
Btw : I just can't understand the point to it...
As spam bots, they should try and vandalize the wiki, but they just keep registering without editing anything or creating any new pages ^^''

I jst checked it out... Can't we jst purge em right here right now? I mean there's a possibility tat they all just attack at once while we're all offline... Or maybe I've jst seen way too many movies tat make me paranoid...

Also, ONI is now slightly present... So... Purge time? Anyone? Popcorn for the purge?

Also... D I get wiki rights now tat I'm an editor?

Actually, measures have already been taken for the wiki, but it's kind of strange that there are still able to register.

And if their plan was to do as you told, Zero, isn't it still strange that they do so since months and months?
And also, why not just create a lot and a lot of account and directly edit things ?
That would be as much work for the mod as what you proposed.


Anyway, it's still viable now. Way more than before.

And a purge may be a really really good idea.

Lery wrote:And a purge may be a really really good idea.

I'll get the popcorn... Caramel or salted?... Haha! It's gotta be caramel...

Anyway, do I get wiki powers (for good/occasional evil)?

I'm fine with caramel too.

I don't think you get any wiki power when you're accepted in the editor group on the forum

Lery wrote:And if their plan was to do as you told, Zero, isn't it still strange that they do so since months and months?

From what I can see. This wave of spamming has been only going on from May onwards. So it's hardly been a month. Plus they all get blocked soon after registering so they hardly get enough time to move on to phase II.

Or perhaps the spammer's intent is to deplete baka-tsuki's website storage space by making BT record a large amount of (user) data.

Or perhaps the spammer wants to slow down the pace of translation. (Hmm could it be, one of the publishing companies is doing it? )

Or perhaps the spammer just wants to piss us off and enjoy watching us cavort around. There are people like that. Teasing others just to enjoy watching them get angry. They're the worst, in my opinion.

It's most probably sort of automated bots that target the mediawiki platform. They have some ways to pass the captcha at a certain success rate.

Can we make mods approve the registrations?

And can we ask them to add a comment of some sort to prove they're humans?

Just add in a custom BT question together with the captcha, and it should work for a few months like it always did.

KuroiHikari wrote:Just add in a custom BT question together with the captcha, and it should work for a few months like it always did.

And then? The spambots gets updated, change their IP's (since they are dynamically assigned) but we can't act fast enough and in just a week we have waves of spam. Sorry for saying this without being more "suave" but the admins should look for definitive solutions to these kinds of problems. Everyone at B-T should be busy translating, editing, being moderator between users, enforcing policies, being a leecher, reading, giving words of appreciation/encouragement, whatever they are supposed to do, except fighting spam individually which is not the solution on short, medium and long time basis. It's time consuming and isn't fast enough to prevent damage from start. Here's some ripped off reasons why banning (human based blockages) is not useful when fighting spam:
Banning:

• + can be used to fight against single humans who want to fight especially against your board (the only + of the list that really matters)
  + banning don't need any third party components
  - banning is not working automatically
  - you have to host the banning data(base) on your board
  - the list will not been filled and maintained automatically
  - Banning is working only with User Activation or Double Activation

Blocking:

• + blocking is working automatically
  + blocking is works with most of account activation methods
  + Blacklists are filled and maintained automatically by their policies
  + the blocking database is not hosted at your board
  - Blacklists are third party components
  - can not be used to fight against single humans who want to fight especially against your board

So, implementing a new CHAPTCHA ain't good enough too:
Visual confirmation captchas:

• + you can use several different captchas
  - blind users are not able to register
  - a lot of not blind users - e.g. old users - are having problems with them, too == false positives
  - visual confirmation can be hacked - it's just a question of time till the first Yuki has hacked them
  - they are not preventing any human spammers
  - they are using third party components
  - they are taking a little bit of extra performance
  - Admin activation (or Double Activation) still is needed.

Q&A captchas:

• + spam bot programs have problems to fill them out correctly (until the spammer figure out the responces)
  - human spammers will get them filled out correctly related to the languages they understand
  - they are not looking professional or serious
  - Admin activation (or Double Activation) still is needed
  + does not reduce server board performance

I've posted a link about several blocking methods that could be used to fight wiki-spammers. Is more complicated to implement that a simple CHAPTCHA? Yes, but think about all that lost men/labor hours just deleting, banning and reverting spam. Also, since you don't have their account in B-T databases the server itself will be glad too.

Here is the sources from where I ripped off: https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/ ... /faq/f_391 and https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/ ... /faq/f_395 , and please don't tell me those reasons only apply to forums, because the author itself is trying to use the most generic term, so it can be used in every kind of suscription service.

And then, we just change the question again. BT has pretty been admin-less for quite a few years. The way I see it, it's all update here update there. The new updates probably could provide new spam solutions, but that can get broken through as well, then you've to get new updates.

The admin isn't free most of the time. But we can always hope for his response here whenever he's free.

It is pretty much obvious that the old solution for a BT context question has proven far more effective than the current solution(s).

The bots just went bonkers and made another 100+ accounts all in the last 20 minutes or so.

We can only block all of them, sadly...

Argh!



Someone do something!

This is driving me crazy!

Suggestion: If we can't pin point the IP responsible, can't we just block the whole country that is generating these accounts? Unless it's one of the major contributors.

Other than polluting my feed reader (yeah, I'm such a jerk) I don't see any problem. BTW, the one that is trying to block 1-by-1 all the spammers based on username is just losing his time. In novels is the only place where machines lose to humans... you will never win against a bot. AL HAIL THE BOT!

If anyone is interested in stopping the bot attack will have to embark a quest in Bakatsukard for months, looking for thelastguardian, but he's not easy to find since he loves to play 'Hide & Seek', so patience is required. When you find him, ask him for FTP access to servers, with that you will have the power to make the wiki go KAPUT! or using the power for good deeds like put a brake on all the bots... but I know the temptation to do evil will make him do the unspeakable!