Captcha needed on nzconnections.net.nz due to spambots

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Captcha needed on nzconnections.net.nz due to spambots

davemc

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#76914 8-Feb-2011 18:06

nzconnections.net.nz wiki is being hammered by spammers & spam labourers.

http://www.nzconnections.net.nz/Special:RecentChanges

The last 500 posts in February are all for fake jobs.

Can admins please look into this.

Anyone know who / where / why someone has rented such a large bot network / slave typist network to spam for jobs ? Follow the money, how can they make money from fake job ads?

This new tack with completely different words seems to be pounding through spam filters everywhere.

DaveMc.

manhinli

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#436911 8-Feb-2011 18:17

Thanks for raising this Dave! :)

However, since I don't have control over the website, we'll have to see what gets implemented in the end to get this fixed and prevent further attacks.

From what I can see, the IPs are random, so looks like a botnet sort of attack.

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cokemaster

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#438602 12-Feb-2011 15:00

Thanks for letting us know :)

We've cleaned it up and put in a captcha system though will probably have to put in further extensions to reduce the spammers.

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freitasm

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#438606 12-Feb-2011 15:21

I'd suggest (if possible) you block postings from IP addresses based in countries known to harbour spammers. This would go a long way to reduce spam.

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#438609 12-Feb-2011 15:38

freitasm: I'd suggest (if possible) you block postings from IP addresses based in countries known to harbour spammers. This would go a long way to reduce spam.

+1 on that idea.

I would imagine being "NZ Connections" blocking say china would not effect your user base much

freitasm

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#438623 12-Feb-2011 16:22

Here on Geekzone we have a good list of countries blocked from posting in the forums - except for moderators and trusted users.

Now and then I get the odd PM asking why they can't post while on a trip to a blocked country.

If the user has been on Geekzone for a while I used give a trusted status and it's all good. New users from those countries don't even get a reply. Sorry, but reality bites...

manhinli

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#439454 14-Feb-2011 20:48

I better hope the necessary stuff gets done quick! It's still getting bombarded!

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#443683 26-Feb-2011 17:16

I don't like digging threads up but I thought I'd let you know that we've implemented an IP whitelist.

Now you can only register an account from the NZ IP addresses. People outside of NZ IP space will still be able to view the site, edit and log in however they will not be able to register an account.

Coupled with a few other things we've added which has significantly lowered the volume of spam bots (they can read the captchas), this should reduce it even further.

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davemc

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#443849 27-Feb-2011 11:01

Can I ask where or how you locate the NZ IP Block list?

DaveMc

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#443852 27-Feb-2011 11:25

We use http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecountry

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