When will the Chinese spam posts be deleted?

[Zulu]

. . .  along with the guy who keeps posting them?

[Jim & Alice]

Quite a nuisance.

 

[rynosback]

There back....and all graduating to full timers. 

[rynosback]

3 1/2 pages in one section alone.

[Twotoes]

How do you know its Chineese and not Korean? 

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

And here I thought they were just happy Chinese RVers wanting to join the conversation. 

[Zulu]

On 6/12/2019 at 6:23 AM, Twotoes said:

How do you know its Chinese and not Korean? 

I listen to a lot of Asian music . . .

Korean uses "circles" = 축하해주신 모든 분들 감사합니다

Japanese has lots of curves = ずーっと行きたかった所やっといけた

Thai uses curves, circles & accents = ที่ไหนสักแห่งเหนือสายรุ้ง

Chinese looks like buildings to me = 美国文凭办理微信

[TXiceman]

I was a site administrator for a large RV site for several years.  We started getting so much garbage out of China and Indonesia that we finally blocked all IP addresses from certain countries.   

Maybe the IT folks can just block all of these Asian IP's.  I doubt if any Escapees are based in Asia.

Ken

[Carlos]

I don't recall what it takes to sign up here.  I run a motorcycle forum with pretty good traffic so we used to get plenty of spammer signups.  Now we've put in a question that only someone with motorcycle knowledge would answer properly, and just don't approve any registrations without that answer.

 

[rynosback]

9 hours ago, TXiceman said:

I was a site administrator for a large RV site for several years.  We started getting so much garbage out of China and Indonesia that we finally blocked all IP addresses from certain countries.   

Maybe the IT folks can just block all of these Asian IP's.  I doubt if any Escapees are based in Asia.

Ken

But you can spoof an IP address.

[rynosback]

8 hours ago, Carlos said:

I don't recall what it takes to sign up here.  I run a motorcycle forum with pretty good traffic so we used to get plenty of spammer signups.  Now we've put in a question that only someone with motorcycle knowledge would answer properly, and just don't approve any registrations without that answer.

 

That could be tough and exclude any people thinking about RVing that have no knowledge of it. Which motorcycle site? 

[Carlos]

16 minutes ago, rynosback said:

But you can spoof an IP address.

You cannot.  That's a common myth/misconception.  I mean, you can spew packets in ONE direction in some very limited cases with a fake IP,  but you cannot engage in a connection with a site from a spoofed IP.  A connection to the site requires traffic in both directions, and a spoofed packet would get the return traffic sent to the real location of the IP.

Source:  Been a network engineer since the 80s.

[rynosback]

Yes, you are correct as each computer has there own IP address/Mac address. But you can mask your location using a VPN. So unless you know all of the IP address of the spammers, it is impossible to stop them. The only way I could see is a stronger verification system for new members. But sites like this want to show high numbers of members, as I would think that they could sell more advertising. Even though looking at the active members is the real key.

[TXiceman]

So put about 5 RV related questions up for answers....no answers, no entry.

Ken

[chirakawa]

8 hours ago, TXiceman said:

So put about 5 RV related questions up for answers....no answers, no entry.

Ken

First of all, if you require new members to have RV knowledge, then that would eliminate new members coming here for................RV knowledge.  Second, it doesn't matter what RV related questions you ask, someone could come up with an answer from Google in about 30 seconds.  

[Sehc]

This is the only forum I read with the Chinese Spam. I visit  about 5 during the year.

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

I don't think the questions even need to be RV related - just a text question: "What is the sum of seven and three?" will filter out most robots.

[Carlos]

12 hours ago, rynosback said:

But you can mask your location using a VPN.

Except that they just don't.  I deal with this every day for work; we've stopped 60-80% of issues by just blocking China and Russia on some of the most-attacked servers.

 

[Darryl&Rita]

3 hours ago, GR "Scott" Cundiff said:

I don't think the questions even need to be RV related - just a text question: "What is the sum of seven and three?" will filter out most robots.

The last episode was definitely human driven, not bot. You could see the time they spent learning the board, as they copy pasted several recent threads to post as their own. Once they had that down, the floodgates opened. There's no easy solution to this, only vigilance.

[Carlos]

Yeah, most of the spammers we see on my forum are humans.  But they still don't know the answer to the motorcycle question, ever, so that has been pretty effective.  Blocking China and Russia completely has also been a huge help.  I'm considering the middle East next, as that's another problem area, however we actually have some members who travel there regularly.

 

[rynosback]

Not sure what format or even version that is being used here. I’m on 3 other forums and there is not this issue.  Maybe it is just about the settings that they have allowed? Two of them are using 

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[Kirk W]

On 6/21/2019 at 11:46 AM, Darryl&Rita said:

The last episode was definitely human driven, not bot.

What always amazes me when these come up is that some people go and look at every one of the posts when they are all the exact same spam! There were 26 identical posts and each one had been viewed at least 5 times????

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

6 minutes ago, Kirk W said:

What always amazes me when these come up is that some people go and look at every one of the posts when they are all the exact same spam! There were 26 identical posts and each one had been viewed at least 5 times????

Maybe web crawlers?

[Sehc]

But why do I only see them on this forum?

[Darryl&Rita]

Because keeping them out takes time and money. We have a volunteer brigade, that hides them, but the corporate IT office has decided they must be hands on for the final removal. Their time doing so removes their services from other issues, unless more IT is hired. Endless circle time. Invision boards, that the forum runs on, aren't particularly fun to oversee, either. In the past few years, the software has removed a lot of automated "housecleaning" tools, while charging more for the space. At the risk of a lynch mob forming, it may be time to look into a new provider. Think back to the last time the boards were down, and all the teeth gnashing, hair pulling, and wailing.