Spam

Repeat previous requests for discarding of messages with “http:” and “https:” in the subject… ;-)

You could get the same affect by rejecting ://

Repeat previous requests for discarding of messages with “http:” and “https:” in the subject… ;-)

OK, off you go, modify the web site’s code.

With the continuing – and escalating – amounts of rubbish being posted by newly registered spammers, I fear they may have been just testing the waters. Unless something is done to stop them, are we going to be the victim of another mass DOS attack? And I wish I had the skills to modify the code, but sadly I do not.

Possibly a blind alley but are the spammers coming from specific locales or specific domains?

The last limitation put in was to block specific countries like china and korea – perhaps an expansion of the block is warranted.

gmail.com, protonmail.com, yopmail.com are the most common – I don’t think we could realistically block the first mentioned.

Please, everybody, keep ignoring the moles. I’ll whack them all.

It doesn’t seem to occur to these idiots that all their spams are deleted within a short time (the shortest I can manage, given that I have other things to do!), and no-one clicks on their links from here. It’s a complete waste of their effort.

it doesn’t seem to occur to these idiots

Very unlikely that these idiots are human beings. Their effusions are computer generated. The only way to stop them is get more control over the Beast.

Very unlikely that these idiots are human beings. Their effusions are computer generated.

I’m not so sure. The delay between account creation and deposit of their spam is very variable, minutes up to days. I’d expect a machine to do it pretty much straightaway.

minutes up to days

Interesting. That could also be automated, I suppose. The usernames are usually a giveaway.

I’d expect a machine to do it pretty much straightaway.

That would be a pretty obvious giveaway, a new user signup immediately followed by a post too long to have typed out. I’m with Gavin, this smacks of automation with a variable delay.

keep ignoring the moles. I’ll whack them all.

So not so much moles as Pokémon then. ;-)

So not so much moles as Pokémon then

Despite having no real interest in games this specific game is well enough known for me to have registered its existence.

gmail.com, protonmail.com, yopmail.com are the most common – I don’t think we could realistically block the first mentioned.

you have no sense of fun :)
Seriously though, gmail is one of the commonest disposable address systems around

Dave Higton, I don’t know if you could share a copy of the ROOL sign up code with me?

It would interesting to see how easy it would be to add a simple fixed challenge question. The approach riscos.info employs is very similar to a simple ’I’m not a robot’ approach.

You can find my contact address at www.amcog-games.co.uk

Thanks,

Tony

I don’t know if you could share a copy of the ROOL sign up code with me

It’s already available if you go to the website tarballs a glance at the changes will quickly get you to the country specific block that Andrew did in 2016 when there was a major DoS style spamming.

Hence me suggesting the modification to take in other countries and domains – but Dave seems to have a fondness for gmail users :)

but Dave seems to have a fondness for gmail users

Like it or not, GMail is a legitimate, popular email provider. Away from the somewhat blinkered world of RISC OS, the majority of people that I contact regularly on “non-work business” use GMail.

Steve – I know very little about Pokémon other than a weird looking yellow thing called Pikachu, and one of the taglines of the game being “gotta catch them all”… which seemed appropriate.

I know very little about Pokémon

I think I know less, nearly zero except for some “noise” at work about some variant that had people wandering various places paying more attention to a smart phone¹ than to things like the traffic bearing down on them.

¹ This appeared to be an instance of the device being smarter than the user.

Like it or not, GMail is a legitimate

I could simply say not, but the proper answer is that it’s something we (work) endeavour to block, along with other mail servers, as mail has to pass via secure relays and anything confidential has to be encrypted with the decrypt key passed separately.

OK, outside work, yes it was tongue in cheek to an extent. I do believe there is mileage in forcing users using typical spam source addresses to register in another more convoluted way – like perhaps the system drops an activation request in a mailbox that Dave can see instead of:

 hubssolib_set_flash(
    :notice,
    'Thanks for signing up. Your site account must be activated ' <<
    'before you can use it - please check your e-mail account '   <<
    'for a message which tells you what you should do next.'

Spammers asking for Castle’s email address seems to be becoming a recurring theme.

Genuine question from genuine user: https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/487

Probably a spammer: https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/9727
Definitely a spammer (not spotted until they created another spam thread a couple of weeks ago, note that jasper13’s original message is now spam): https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/11584
And since it worked first time round, jasper13 is back again with the same question: https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/11789

Hmmm. Maybe Americans looking to sue for some perceived patent infringement without realising that RISC OS is older than their mother? (and British)

Idiotic wild guess, but it just seems kind of pointless to post a spam asking for an address. I dunno…

Maybe the spambot has been programmed to search for addresses and has now become sentient enough that it is lazy and simply asking for them instead?

Recent spam for D*rmaVix. Wow.
I’ll tell you what though, it’s better than some of the stuff that passes for poetry these days.

I suspect the post referred to by the following URL is spam https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/11995#posts-83577

My apologies. I don’t know how I missed that one. Gone now.

No need for apologies Dave, without the work you do….. actually it doesn’t bear thinking about, does it? ;-)

Hmm.

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/8961?page=2#posts-88959

First post of user: Check
Somewhat suspicious username: Check
Resurrecting old thread: Check
Post content doesn’t add anything new to the discussion and is mostly a verbatim copy of an existing post: Check

Queues up “Suspicious Minds” on the jukebox

Gone.