More moderators or site update needed asap - to stop spam

[_Zack_]

We really either need someone here (gent perhaps) to promote a few mature and active members (such as myself :P) to moderator status.

Or failing that we need someone to update the site badly (gent perhaps?)

Why? Because of all this spam. just look at the top of the forums, 1964 down. It's full of porn posts.

Now whilst it doesn't really bother us adult members as much (Still wrong), just think of the children!

Or what a parent would think if they saw there kid visiting an emulation site and getting a eyeful of porn.

Please can we do something to combat this asap.

Thanks

[MasterPhW]

Yeah, all oldschool members are pissed as hell.
Same applies to all normal members, that spamming heaven is one of the reasons why ET is nearly dead compared to other boards.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE ET, it was my favourite emulation board and nearly my first, but I think till martin returns there's nothng we can do to revive ET, even new mods won't help.

[_Zack_]

I meant to reword the post a bit.

When i said "stop" i meant to say "delete"

obviously having more mods isn't going to stop bots posting. Will get it cleaned up faster though.

No disrespect to the mods on this site, we all have our own lives to live and we all understand that.

Hence why having more isn't a bad idea.

[Xtreme2damax]

I agree fully, the site was just hit by a porn bot that accumulated 24 posts/threads of spam.

Martin hasn't been seen in a long time and ET could use a few extra willing members to keep the board clean when no one else is around.

A lot of us including myself would be willing to help out since a lot of times staff aren't on and a bot and it's posts don't get taken of until a few or more hours later.

I am almost never away from my PC, so things would be taken care of immediately.

It's the most that can be done for now until Martin shows back up again, me thinks he disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle while attempting to find the Loch Ness monster with captain Jack Sparrow or something. :crazy:

:Edit: Damn, another effing porn bot spamming immediately after the last one, how many more of these are going to spam.

I wish I could find the people responsible for creating these atrocities, infecting everyone, castrate them and hang them by their sack... :angry:

[NES_player4LIFE]

the best we can do is report them

but ya it's getting spamed to death out there:angry:

[RadeonUser]

*Twitches* I want to get rid of that advertisement so badly...

I got rid of the one in PJ64 forums (Somehow I remembered my password o_O) and banned him though.

*crawls back into his hole and slumbers for a few more years*

[MasterPhW]

*Twitches* I want to get rid of that advertisement so badly...

I got rid of the one in PJ64 forums (Somehow I remembered my password o_O) and banned him though.

*crawls back into his hole and slumbers for a few more years*
It's the first good thing I came across since the bots attacked: it brings back some old mods! =)

[Clements]

We need a Super Moderator to be able to delete spam posts across multiple forums until the board is fixed. Otherwise, an Admin will need to do the majority of the work when a multi-post bot hits.

[Allnatural]

We need a Super Moderator to be able to delete spam posts across multiple forums until the board is fixed. Otherwise, an Admin will need to do the majority of the work when a multi-post bot hits.
We have at least four already, though Cyberman and I are the only ones who are active.

[_Zack_]

Another damn spambot today :(

[Xtreme2damax]

I/we hate bots, of course that is already apparently known. :p

Just ignore their threads, don't reply to them, don't click the links definitely, report and await them to be taken care of.

We can hopefully await Martin to return and implement a no spam verification.

There is something I don't get however, how come it's basically Emutalk that gets hit with this volume of spam/porn spam, and Ngemu isn't getting hit by this or other emulation networks.

Yeah Ngemu gets a bot here and there, but nothing of this volume or magnitude.:borg:

[Clements]

The multi-post spambots we have seen recently all seem to have near-identical IP addresses. It should be possible to eliminate those particular bots with an IP ban. Until then, the moderators with the appropriate privileges are going to need to delete about a 100 or so threads everyday.

[MasterPhW]

The multi-post spambots we have seen recently all seem to have near-identical IP addresses. It should be possible to eliminate those particular bots with an IP ban. Until then, the moderators with the appropriate privileges are going to need to delete about a 100 or so threads everyday.
It's really a pain in the as* I guess.
I won't to change roles in this moment really.
They are going on my nerves as hell, but I also think, that all my reports also go on the nerves of the mods here! ;)

[Cyberman]

Well I am pretty sure it's an asian bot maybe European. My guess is it's China based or Russian based. They are the biggest organized crime sources on the internet and the vast majority of spam bots are operated by crime organizations (not individual lone wolfs like 10 years back). If they get 1 click from you folks it will continue. So don't touch the posts (don't even look at them). Doing so adds a hit to them as they are embedding links and there server can register the accesses and where they were directed from by reading information microsoft designed to be freely available from your browsers (and everyone else emulated it because everyone wanted IE compatibility).

Cyb

[Xtreme2damax]

Someone please ban this bot above my post.

It's bad enough they create crap/spam threads, now they are resorting to posting in existing threads as well.

A no spam verification would eliminate 99% - 100% of these bots, if Martin implements it once he returns.

Questions as simple as: "Are you a human" or "Are you a bot" can work wonders against the army of insecticidal bots.

[_Zack_]

Seen as no one wants anymore moderators.... Can we not just enable administrator approval for new members?

I am sure the email addresses used by the spambots are clear enough to immediately know they are bots.

Or you could send the "member" a message asking certain questions to attain whether or not they are human.

It would actually stop the spam until martin comes back.

[MasterPhW]

Seen as no one wants anymore moderators.... Can we not just enable administrator approval for new members?

I am sure the email addresses used by the spambots are clear enough to immediately know they are bots.

Or you could send the "member" a message asking certain questions to attain whether or not they are human.

It would actually stop the spam until martin comes back.
That makes sense, but I think you need to have admin right to do such stuff!

[_Zack_]

That makes sense, but I think you need to have admin right to do such stuff!

I know, Gent is still active though so we have one admin that could do it :)

[ZeldaExpert]

I could maybe hack Martin's account and let a moderator do the rest. Not that I'd do it to be doing it, but we're desperate.

[_Zack_]

I could maybe hack Martin's account and let a moderator do the rest. Not that I'd do it to be doing it, but we're desperate.

Even if you could it would be a little extreme. I am sure that Gent has sufficient admin rights to make others administrators or moderators.

At the end of the day the decision is out of our hands, up to the mods & admins to decide....

[ZeldaExpert]

Just saying.......

[NES_player4LIFE]

they just hit again 1hr ago:angry:

[Xtreme2damax]

I wonder how well an IP/Range ban would fare against this legion of porn spambots? By the sounds of things the spam attacks are coming from the same server/isp/machine/ip range

:Edit: A bot was just banned and it's post's deleted, and another registers and starts spamming porn shit.

I wish I could do something, ban it but I'm powerless here.... Arghhhhhh!:borg:

[zilmar]

I have no control here .. if I did I would look at just making all post that have a link in them require moderation unless the user had like 5-10 unmoderated posts

[_Zack_]

Arrrggggggggggggggg.

This really has gone beyond the joke now.

30+ more spam posts.

Zilmars idea is good, PLEASE someone implement it.

These bots are ruining the site

[NES_player4LIFE]

i almost say that we should make this site private/closed
to all new members for at least a little wile

[Agozer]

That's definitely not a good idea, considering how many people register here and ask questions. Besides, making this board private "for a little while" does nothing to actually solve the spambot problem.

[Phazonaddict]

zilmar's idea of moderating hyperlinked posts is a good idea. Also, maybe a strong capcha! to actually block them from registering... (I always put emphasis on capcha because of one of my lecturers xP)

[zilmar]

Also, maybe a strong capcha! to actually block them from registering... (I always put emphasis on capcha because of one of my lecturers xP)

They are useful, not necessarily as great as you might think. If the attacker is doing it manually, they still get around it. Or they can farm out the answering of it to automate it.

[t0rek]

there are already bots that use OCR technology, making capchas useless, but it doesn't always works for them, and it would block all the bot that doesn't use OCR

[Allnatural]

IP ban is set (thanks Jakob), so the flooding should stop, for now...

[Xtreme2damax]

Thanks, I noticed it calmed down a bit with the spam. Lets hope they don't catch on and go through another proxy or change their IP addresses.

[Phazonaddict]

It'd at least slow them down, anyway.

EDIT: IP ban?Awesome.

[Xtreme2damax]

IP ban is set (thanks Jakob), so the flooding should stop, for now...

I was thinking, while an IP ban is good to slow or stop these annoying bot registration, perhaps something should be posted such as a link or form to contact the staff should any legit users be affected by this temporary solution.

[ZeldaExpert]

Thank goodness! No more "Free Old Gay Mexican woman porn" when I click "search for new posts."

[Cyberman]

I was thinking, while an IP ban is good to slow or stop these annoying bot registration, perhaps something should be posted such as a link or form to contact the staff should any legit users be affected by this temporary solution.
There is this thing call report to moderator (http://www.emutalk.net/report.php?p=412605) (note if you click this you'll report Xtreme2damax to the moderators) you know on every post. That does work too!
:D

Cyb

[MasterPhW]

There is this thing call report to moderator (http://www.emutalk.net/report.php?p=412605) (note if you click this you'll report Xtreme2damax to the moderators) you know on every post. That does work too!
:D

Cyb
You missunderstood him.
He meant, that if a real, non bot user is affected by the IP ban, he want to have a adress to contact the mods. Because the forum won't worl. ;)

[Cyberman]

You missunderstood him.
He meant, that if a real, non bot user is affected by the IP ban, he want to have a adress to contact the mods. Because the forum won't worl. ;)At one time you could pop on #emulation64 on IRC to do that. (Beg prostrate yourself etc.) I don't frequent IRC anymore so I'm not sure if that is practical anymore (IE I don't know if a lot of mods hang there anymore).

Cyb

[Xtreme2damax]

You missunderstood him.
He meant, that if a real, non bot user is affected by the IP ban, he want to have a adress to contact the mods. Because the forum won't worl. ;)

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. IRC might be an if/if idea to contact a staff member should any genuine members be affected. I know most people just idle on IRC a lot, also you have to consider not everyone knows of IRC or knows the networks official channel.

I was oblivious to the IRC protocol until well after I was a member of the emulation networks, and only because someone else introduced me to it. Not everyone knows of IRC, most others would not know what channel to seek help on should they be unable to register/view the forum.

[t0rek]

Thet las time I checked #emulation64 it was a lonely place =P

[!REVENGE!]

How come the forums are being spammed? Pissed someone off have we?

[Agozer]

You don't need to piss off spambots.

[!REVENGE!]

Not true! I was trying to have cybersex with this Pleasurebot once but I ended up trolling it and it got pissed and started slinging hilarious nerd jokes, rofl.

But talking seriously, no you can't piss off a spambot, but you can piss off their operator.