Forums >Technical Support>Why are we being overrun by spambots lately?
Sulphur Springs 50km-- Ancaster, ON-- May 28, 2022
Tally in the Valley 12 hours-- Dundas, ON -- July 30, 2022 (Support SickKids Toronto)
Stokely Creek-- 56km-- Sault Ste. Marie, ON-- Sept. 24, 2022
Good Bad & The Monkey
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
Another one just popped up...
Yup. He's a repeat offender. Just earned himself a subnet ban.
Imminent Catastrophe
"Able to function despite imminent catastrophe"
"To obtain the air that angels breathe you must come to Tahoe"--Mark Twain
"The most common question from potential entrants is 'I do not know if I can do this' to which I usually answer, 'that's the whole point'.--Paul Charteris, Tarawera Ultramarathon RD.
√ Javelina Jundred Jalloween 2015
Cruel Jewel 50 mile May 2016
Western States 100 June 2016
Wouldn't normally agree to this, but in this case, I think it is acceptable. The only issue is, what do you call a "new" user? How much distance/how long would a user have to be on here to be considered not new?
No thread starting for new users, that has some merit.
A Saucy Wench
I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets
"When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7
rectumdamnnearkilledem
Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to
remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
~ Sarah Kay
One day at a time
Eric, I have been on a few boards that require moderation for the first few posts/threads from a new user. Perhaps that is something to implement. Require the first 4-5 posts to be held for moderation to ensure that a user is legit.
I like that idea. Might get rid of a few trolls that way, too.
After looking through the server logs and these spammers' usage patterns, it is true that they were bots. I didn't want to believe at first that someone actually went through the trouble to create a bot for a custom made forum. It could mean that RA is now big enough to be on their radar, which is both good and bad.
I installed a Captcha on the registration page last night, and for the first time in a couple of weeks there weren't any fly by night spamming this morning. I don't want to disable new members from posting just because of spammers. Hopefully, this will cut down the number of spams on RA that I won't have to resort to more drastic (and annoying) measures such as email address verification. Any anti-spamming measure can only go so far since it will never stop a person from manually spamming. For now, RA is clean again.
eric :-)
Maniac
Marathon Maniac #6740
Goals for 2015:
Run 3 marathons (modified: Run 2 marathons--Lost Dutchman 02/2015 and Whiskey Row 05/2015)
Run a 50-miler (Ran a 53.8 mile race 11/14/2015)
Run 1,500 miles (uhhh...how about 1,400?)
Stay healthy
As a sidenote, my advice would be to get rid of this thread. Bots are bots and don't care, but someone built a custom bot specific to this site, then perhaps spread it to script kiddies. One reason for them to "play" here is to attract attention.
Which this thread does.
As a sidenote, my advice would be to get rid of this thread. Bots are bots and don't care, but someone built a custom bot specific to this site, then perhaps spread it to script kiddies. One reason for them to "play" here is to attract attention. Which this thread does.
Wait, wait, don't tell me... I, Robot (?)
"If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus