In recent weeks, we have been under a sustained attack of forum spam from South Korea, far worse than anything we have seen before. We have had to delete thousands and thousands of posts, and blocked hundreds of IPs and IP groups, but it kept on coming. As much of it is not posting links, it gets past spam filters and is causing harm to the forum. We have, therefore, reluctantly taken the decision to block all traffic from South Korea as a temporary measure. I hope this block can be lifted soon and apologise to our genuine users from South Korea who are being affected by this, but there is no other way to stop hundreds and hundreds of posts of rubbish appearing every day.
It is an unfortunate, but reasonable action. The attack was ruining the forum. Is it possible to put new members on moderation temporarily? I was able to do this when I moderated delphi Forums. That would allow spam posts to be deleted and the user banned before ever being seen.
Pope of the Dictionary.com Forum
A lot of their accounts were being moderated and not showing, but many were still getting through. If we put all new members on moderation, the forum would grind to a halt and many would simply give up as their questions didn't appear. The people behind this were professionals who knew what they were doing and had access to a seemingly unlimited supply of IPs, and were very good at getting themselves registered. This could mean that they're using a botnet. However, the value of posting this kind of rubbish is probably close to zero, so it seems a huge waste of time. Most of the spam we've had before has come from other countries, but I have since found out that they are one of the biggest countries for spam, with a reputation for persisting. Most others give up after a while.
I do feel sorry for our regular posters from there who are being affected, but there really was no other way to deal with it.
I sincerely appreciate your efforts in handling this problem.
Pope of the Dictionary.com Forum
I think I saw a few of them make a couple of 'real' posts before launching into their Spamapoloza acts.
You could pretty much predict who was going to be spammer, by their screen names. There was a sense of dread every time I saw 'congrats to our newest member zzzzggy1lologh1'....
Thank you to all the moderators who're working on keeping the forum clean. Too bad the real users from South Korea have to suffer, but drastic measures require drastic steps.
From personal experience moderating a besieged forum, I imagine it will take a few months for the onslaught to subside. Once spammers find a vulnerability, there seems to be some kind of pro-spam brotherhood that shares their latest hot-spot. It's mostly all automated, so it takes a few months of unsuccessfully logging in to get off the bot lists.
Last edited by Skrej; 20-Jun-2015 at 22:40.
The Forum is much more pleasant today. I also feel badly for the normal students from South Korea. But hopefully this will be short-lived.
Pope of the Dictionary.com Forum
Most of them are not very good at what they do- the vast majority don't succeed in registering, but this lot were different. They had access to so many IPs that they just couldn't be stopped by normal banning and blocking methods.Originally Posted by Skrej
If I were given the authority to delete all those rubbish threads, I would be happy to do so.
Unforgivable, indeed.
The spammers are back in a big way tonight. I think I agree with you that the deletion power needs to be expanded so that different time zones are covered. I would be happy to participate.
Pope of the Dictionary.com Forum
Yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
We need to work together to tackle this problem.
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