Massassi Forums Logo

This is the static archive of the Massassi Forums. The forums are closed indefinitely. Thanks for all the memories!

You can also download Super Old Archived Message Boards from when Massassi first started.

"View" counts are as of the day the forums were archived, and will no longer increase.

☖ Forums → Discussion Forum → Spambots
Spambots
2011-01-11, 3:52 PM #1
How exactly do these work? Are they people who are paid to register for forums and advertise or are people designing software that can get around the "prove you're not a robot by typing this hard to read sequence of letters and numbers" text box things?
2011-01-11, 3:57 PM #2
Wanna see the new celebrity sex video, or crack a particular piece of software? I have just the thing you need behind this hijacked Massassi CAPTCHA, allowing my robot to farm humans to register accounts and spam.
ᵗʰᵉᵇˢᵍ๒ᵍᵐᵃᶥᶫ∙ᶜᵒᵐ
ᴸᶥᵛᵉ ᴼᵑ ᴬᵈᵃᵐ
2011-01-11, 3:59 PM #3
My assumption is that they're people who have no social life and haven't seen daylight in at least two weeks.

also, I think the text boxes are called CAPTCHA's. Or at least that is one program thing that does them.
"Hello one day ban." ~ Baconfish
>Liberius when he's not on Massassi<
2011-01-11, 4:03 PM #4
Protip: we don't even use CAPTCHA, we use logic questions. Asks stuff about the site, to test that they're human (and no, the answers are not in the questions).

And yet they still register, so I'm going to lean towards cheap human labor, which isn't all that uncommon.
2011-01-11, 4:17 PM #5
If you ever want to see your daughter alive again you're going to have to advertise these knockoff colognes on 60 different web forums by midnight tomorrow.
:master::master::master:
2011-01-11, 5:03 PM #6
Mechanical Turk.

Actually, you should add that as a second question, if you can. "Are you from Mechanical Turk: y/n"

If yes, then autoban.
My Parkour blog
My Twitter. Follow me!
2011-01-12, 4:51 AM #7
I cant be bothered to log out and look at the registration scree, what exactly are the types of questions?
Snail racing: (500 posts per line)------@%
2011-01-12, 5:10 AM #8
Originally posted by alpha1:
I cant be bothered to log out and look at the registration scree, what exactly are the types of questions?


I was curious and slightly less lazy, but when I refreshed the registration page repeatedly it only seemed to alternate between two logic questions. Is that all there is? I was expecting more.
My favorite JKDF2 h4x:
EAH XMAS v2
MANIPULATOR GUN
EAH SMOOTH SNIPER
2011-01-12, 6:57 AM #9
There's only four, really. Not necessary to have much more than that, and it's difficult to come up with unambiguous questions (I prefer not to make them all math).
2011-01-12, 7:12 AM #10
I've heard that bots sometimes will capture questions or "captcha" from a page, and put it on some porn website. Then a human comes across said question or captcha, and answers it correctly, then the bot will have it's answer to register on the website.
"Nulla tenaci invia est via"
2011-01-12, 7:16 AM #11
Yea that's not uncommon.
2011-01-12, 9:31 AM #12
Nevermind
2011-01-12, 10:14 AM #13
That's quite clever
You can't judge a book by it's file size
2011-01-12, 10:18 AM #14
I liked the CAPTCHA-like thing at the DoomWorld forums where you have to select the name of the (Doom) monster in the picture. ... Of course I had to refresh it quite a few times to get the Cacodemon >_>
Star Wars: TODOA | DXN - Deus Ex: Nihilum
2011-01-12, 12:34 PM #15
Oh god, the bots are coming down full force.

Kill one, and four more pop up.
SnailIracing:n(500tpostshpereline)pants
-----------------------------@%
2011-01-12, 12:54 PM #16
Originally posted by FastGamerr:
I liked the CAPTCHA-like thing at the DoomWorld forums where you have to select the name of the (Doom) monster in the picture. ... Of course I had to refresh it quite a few times to get the Cacodemon >_>


I would probably fail horribly at that. I've played the death out of the various dooms but never took note of the monster names
You can't judge a book by it's file size
2011-01-12, 12:57 PM #17
If Matty did something like that here, I assume it would be with R2D2, C3PO, Boba Fett, Jawas, etc.
2011-01-12, 2:03 PM #18
You should make a CAPTCHA suggestion thread that only registered viewers can see.

My contribution: What was the compilation/expansion of Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2?

The only problem with that is you'd have to accept such a wide variety of words. Mysteries of the Sith, MotS, MOTS, Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith, etc.
ᵗʰᵉᵇˢᵍ๒ᵍᵐᵃᶥᶫ∙ᶜᵒᵐ
ᴸᶥᵛᵉ ᴼᵑ ᴬᵈᵃᵐ
2011-01-12, 2:11 PM #19
I would fail horribly at that too. I don't think I'm the only one either, we aren't all star wars fanatics here =p
You can't judge a book by it's file size
2011-01-12, 4:05 PM #20
Why not just make registrations admin approved?

o.0
2011-01-12, 4:12 PM #21
That would work since spam usernames are instantly recognizable.
ᵗʰᵉᵇˢᵍ๒ᵍᵐᵃᶥᶫ∙ᶜᵒᵐ
ᴸᶥᵛᵉ ᴼᵑ ᴬᵈᵃᵐ
2011-01-12, 4:16 PM #22
We already tried that. We get quite a few registrations, even if they don't post, and they aren't always obvious.
2011-01-12, 4:52 PM #23
Aww, I liked the one who wanted help with VC++ 6. We should've kept him. :(
2011-01-13, 1:26 AM #24
Originally posted by Cool Matty:
We already tried that. We get quite a few registrations, even if they don't post, and they aren't always obvious.



Some of them are pretty interesting though. Of course, I mean the choice of names, not the crap they're trying to pawn off.
"Hello one day ban." ~ Baconfish
>Liberius when he's not on Massassi<
2011-01-13, 1:34 AM #25
I like the star wars characters pictures idea.
To make it mostly uncrackable, use drawings by forum posters to (mostly) defeat a service like TinEye. That should make it so that it would simply be too much of a resource drain on whoever does this to try, and they move on to an easier hit.
2011-01-13, 3:26 AM #26
What the hell. Boards are getting spammed (ISB and Main Discussion Forum).
幻術
2011-01-13, 5:42 AM #27
The ISB is finally getting some posts! :P

But yeah, awfully lot of spambots lately.
Star Wars: TODOA | DXN - Deus Ex: Nihilum
2011-01-13, 6:48 AM #28
Even the forum I run for kart racing has been getting a lot of spammers lately.
"Nulla tenaci invia est via"
2011-01-13, 10:48 AM #29
I think ISB should roll with those spam posts, every story needs some cheap viagra.
My favorite JKDF2 h4x:
EAH XMAS v2
MANIPULATOR GUN
EAH SMOOTH SNIPER
2011-01-13, 10:52 AM #30
Originally posted by EAH_TRISCUIT:
I think ISB should roll with those spam posts, every story needs some cheap viagra.



I don't know... there are a few things that I can think of that just would not mix.
"Hello one day ban." ~ Baconfish
>Liberius when he's not on Massassi<
2011-01-13, 12:10 PM #31
I considered letting them roll, but most of them just aren't fun enough to consider rolling with... that, and Koobie's the only one who replied to them.

However, the spambot who posted about Zynga needs to die a horrible death.
The Plothole: a home for amateur, inclusive, collaborative stories
http://forums.theplothole.net
2011-01-13, 1:13 PM #32
Originally posted by EAH_TRISCUIT:
I think ISB should roll with those spam posts, every story needs some cheap viagra.


If I weren't so anal retentive about keeping my signature tiny, this would be in my signature.
ᵗʰᵉᵇˢᵍ๒ᵍᵐᵃᶥᶫ∙ᶜᵒᵐ
ᴸᶥᵛᵉ ᴼᵑ ᴬᵈᵃᵐ
2011-01-13, 1:35 PM #33
We should bring back MassBot to combat the spam bots.
2011-01-13, 2:02 PM #34
That's like using using a nuclear explosion to put out an oil fire.

↑ Up to the top!