SPAM countermeasures

[eagle2]

To the attention of site admins

The volume of spam increases dramatically in the past weeks. My suggestion is the volume is bot generated, as one and the same spam appears again from various new users, exactly for 4 posts (easily tracked while reporting).

I suggest when a new user registers, first:

1. To have implemented a visual code check when registering as a new user (preventing machine registration), like Captcha, etc. (see: recaptcha.net)

2. To have downloaded the 3CXPhoneSystem or 3CX Phone

3. To answer some simple questions, like what is 3CX, what is an ISDN, etc. -- logical questions, answers to which can easily be guessed by people really willing to use the forum, preventing fake posts.

4. Create a blacklist of spammer addresses.

Other measures (from other forums) may be also useful. Otherwise the risk of killing the forum is increasing.

Regards

 

[complex1]

+1.

Also send, after registration, an activation link to the given e-mail address, but don’t allow a free e-mail address like Hotmail, Gmail, etc.

 

[Vali_3CX]

Hi Orlin, Frank
We are aware about this problem, but it's not so simple to improve the registration process. On the other hand, we check the forum quite often - nobody observed this? - and we are trying to clean all spam we found.
I suggest you to use post's Report feature button (

) everytime you find a spam message - it helps us to quickly locate such incident.
Thanks for help
Regards
vali

 

[eagle2]

Hi Vali,

I noticed the efforts, but spam is increasing constantly. I'm using the report tool everyday, but some days up to 10 times -- so this is quite a high rate. The good point is the spam is deleted relatively quickly.

Consider my e-mail as a wish to improve the forum -- something should be done soon.

Regards

 

[nbailey]

Hi Orlin,

I do take note and thank you for your efforts in reporting the spam quickly. Sometimes I remove it long before folks even know it is up. But thanks for your input.

Thanks,
Nate

 

[davidbenwell]

one way to resolve this would put all new posts where the member as a post count less then 10 to be approved by the admins before going live.

 

[leejor]

The "visual code check" is a great idea to weed out the bots, many sites make use of that. The other thing that would deter spammers is a two day "waiting" period where they could not make a post immediately after creating a user profile. They would be sent an email, a day after creating a profile, if not responded to, within two days, the profile would automatically be deleted.

Spammers like to get in and out quickly, anything that slows them down will deter them.

 

[nb]

We already have a list of blacklisted spammers but these are generally created dynamically and it is hard to detect them until after the post is made.

Spam is the result of increased popularity and traffic in the 3CX Forums - so it is an ongoing battle that needs to be addressed. The forum cannot be killed by spam. Its force is too weak and users are intelligent enough to ignore these messages.

All we can do at this point is that we work together and you guys assist us by informing us on spam you see.

Point 1 makes sense - We will see if phpbb supports this.
1. To have implemented a visual code check when registering as a new user (preventing machine registration), like Captcha, etc. (see: recaptcha.net)