WrongPlanet is UNDER ATTACK! You may get DDoS warnings.

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That explains a lot

I'd just moved over to using RISC OS on a Raspberry Pi, and had no problems whatsoever accessing other phpBB and PHP-Nuke based sites using the supplied Netsurf browser, but could not get onto here because of CloudFlare, as it requires Javascript and Netsurf doesn't support it for some strange reason, so to get on here I have to use a hideously horrible port of Firefox, which appears to crash randomly while on WrongPlanet (but that's for another thread entirely) though not on my personal blog when updating it which is the only reason I installed it onto RISC OS in the first place.

hopefully these lazy a*** people will stop sending bots in here, and the mods have an easier time of it, and normal service resumed

Don't forget Miss Honey, Sweetie, and a boat-load of other dubiously salacious types.
But, it's something of a truism: if it didn't work then it wouldn't be happening.

Unfortunately it is.
If they're able to get away with mass mailing 100,000 addresses and only 500 respond and get drawn in before the free mail account gets shut down - it was worth doing. Then they simply set up another free account and do it all over again...
Better, use a botnet to do the mailing via compromised accounts. Just send out the job once to the botnet controller and sit back.

[img][800:777]http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj108/mfs1013/WPnobodygottime_zps046cec9b.jpg[/img]

Brilliant! Someone has f****d up and turned the CloudFlair protection off! We are now getting swamped with fake members again. 100 already and counting. Looks like they are registering even faster than last time i.e. more than around 1000 per day. Well I aint cleaning the mess up this time.

Now 150 spam accounts and rising...

Sliqua have turned the protection back on again now. Spammer stopped dead in his tracks.

If registrations are the problem is it possible to turn on this CloudFlare protection only for the registration page? Also, I guess the bot can solve the existing CAPTCHA? Is it time for a more complex one? (Human users hate them, too, I know, but you only have to do it once.)

The captcha's that WP uses are very simple as captchas go. Some members (me included) find even the "simple" ones difficult sometimes. The trouble is there are automated bots that can solve the simple captchas nowadays so the only way forward has to be either to remove the URL field from the members profile or put a restriction on it that it only becomes available after members have made x posts. This will make spamming WP less desirable. Only Alex can decide what course of action to take. This DDoS CloudFlare protection is really only intended for short term attacks, not an ongoing solution to the problem.

Next time a WP member gets scammed like this, could you PM me the email address?

I'm sure I could find some people who would be more than happy to cause some trouble for these lowlifes, particularly if they are targetting disabled people.

<snipped to protect my privacy>

Last edited by The_Walrus on 30 Jan 2013, 11:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

^ Have you seen this site? - the amusing results of scam-baiting: http://www.scamorama.com/

Yes, good point about the CAPTCHAs. AI will soon be better at solving them than humans - which is exciting from a computer science point of view, but not good for spam prevention. There are other anti-bot measures (like honeypot input fields), but those won't work if the attack is specifically customised for WP.

Restricting the URL profile field sounds like a very good idea. From what I've seen very few members use it anyway and I can't see a legitimate reason for a new member needing it.

Are they targeting Wrongplanet for any specific reason (other than because it has limited security)?

To do this the registration page would need to be on a separate domain.

^ Stuffing URLs into WP means they will be picked up by Google and therefore promote those sites' Google ratings.
It's a cheap and thoroughly fraudulent way of achieving the same result in Google as lots of people visiting the sites: they appear popular.

That's not nearly as onerous as you make it sound.

Everyone involved in working this issue understands that the cloudflare protection is a temporary one - and we're working on potential long-term solutions.

And it'd be href'd into the existing site, redering your point invalid

Just FYI, and I appreciate everything you are doing to stop spammers, but I've been unable to access the site for two full days, and have been trying repeatedly over that time. The "few minutes" on the warning page has been on a repeating cycle that lasts a considerable amount of time, and simply repeats when I try again.

Sorry if this is already noted upthread; I scrolled through but didn't see that anyone had posted this issue.