Author Topic: Extreme spambot rush last night  (Read 6291 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline DJ Omnimaga

  • Clacualters are teh gr33t
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
  • *
  • Posts: 55941
  • Rating: +3154/-232
  • CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
    • View Profile
    • Dream of Omnimaga Music
Extreme spambot rush last night
« on: November 16, 2012, 05:32:29 pm »
Hmm Netham45, do you know if any of your anti-spams were down last night? Because there were like 100+ new registrations and an unusual amount of spam posts. Normally since the new anti-spam measures last Spring there are only 2-4 registrations a day... O.O

TI-Freakware was hit as well it seems, but I'm unsure if they use the same anti-spam.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2012, 06:05:12 pm by DJ_O »

Offline Eeems

  • Mr. Dictator
  • Administrator
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *************
  • Posts: 6265
  • Rating: +318/-36
  • little oof
    • View Profile
    • Eeems
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2012, 05:38:18 pm »
If it was down our site would be down. You go through cloudflare to get to Omnimaga itself. Cloudflare has pretty much no downtime at all.
It must just be a new set of bots out there that found our site and have not been blocked by cloudflare yet. The ones I looked at don't even have an ip address apparently x.x
/e

Offline Netham45

  • LV11 Super Veteran (Next: 3000)
  • ***********
  • Posts: 2103
  • Rating: +213/-4
  • *explodes*
    • View Profile
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2012, 05:39:40 pm »
All the anti-spam should have been up, I'm not sure what was up with all the spambots.
Omnimaga Admin

Offline DJ Omnimaga

  • Clacualters are teh gr33t
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
  • *
  • Posts: 55941
  • Rating: +3154/-232
  • CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
    • View Profile
    • Dream of Omnimaga Music
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2012, 05:43:03 pm »
Actually Eeems if it's StopForumSpam that is down the site will still work. It will simply let you register anyway regardless of if you are a bot or not (unless you changed it to set members on approval)

Offline Eeems

  • Mr. Dictator
  • Administrator
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *************
  • Posts: 6265
  • Rating: +318/-36
  • little oof
    • View Profile
    • Eeems
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2012, 05:47:15 pm »
Quote
Actually Eeems if it's StopForumSpam that is down the site will still work. It will simply let you register anyway regardless of if you are a bot or not (unless you changed it to set members on approval)
I wasn't talking about StopForumSpam, I was talking about CloudFlare which blocks a lot more then StopForumSpam does.
/e

Offline DJ Omnimaga

  • Clacualters are teh gr33t
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
  • *
  • Posts: 55941
  • Rating: +3154/-232
  • CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
    • View Profile
    • Dream of Omnimaga Music
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #5 on: November 16, 2012, 05:51:40 pm »
Yeah I know, I was just saying since Omnimaga has 3 different anti-spams :P (including those two and also the registration questions)

Offline DJ Omnimaga

  • Clacualters are teh gr33t
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
  • *
  • Posts: 55941
  • Rating: +3154/-232
  • CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
    • View Profile
    • Dream of Omnimaga Music
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #6 on: November 19, 2012, 02:58:00 am »
In the admin CP, could you check the Stop Spam settings and see if there's a small red warning saying it can't connect to SFS or something similar? I had this happen once on 1and1 due to server misconfiguration and it would basically let anyone in due to being unable to check their IP/e-mail. If that's the case, then maybe that could explain the recent wave of bots.

Otherwise, maybe it's time to bring back the infamous old board anti-spam? D: It worked perfectly on the old board, but it was annoying and put us at risk of deterring some impatient users from finalizing their registration (plus as seen in the screenshot below, some people don't know how to read):
« Last Edit: November 19, 2012, 02:58:24 am by DJ_O »

Offline aeTIos

  • Nonbinary computing specialist
  • LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
  • ************
  • Posts: 3915
  • Rating: +184/-32
    • View Profile
    • wank.party
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2012, 04:57:08 am »
Well we could also make an extra anti-spam filter just like revsoft's. (linking calcs with manufacturers)
I'm not a nerd but I pretend:

Offline TIfanx1999

  • ಠ_ಠ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *
  • Posts: 6173
  • Rating: +191/-9
    • View Profile
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #8 on: November 19, 2012, 07:10:03 am »
@DJ: Oh wow, I remember that. It actually did seem to be fairly effective too.

Offline flyingfisch

  • I'm 1337 now!
  • Members
  • LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
  • **********
  • Posts: 1620
  • Rating: +94/-17
  • Testing, testing, 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8..9
    • View Profile
    • Top Page Website Design
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #9 on: November 19, 2012, 07:44:29 am »
Hmm Netham45, do you know if any of your anti-spams were down last night? Because there were like 100+ new registrations and an unusual amount of spam posts. Normally since the new anti-spam measures last Spring there are only 2-4 registrations a day... O.O

TI-Freakware was hit as well it seems, but I'm unsure if they use the same anti-spam.

Don't know if its related, but UCF has been hit by quite a few bots recently too.



Quote from: my dad
"welcome to the world of computers, where everything seems to be based on random number generators"



The Game V. 2.0

Offline Jim Bauwens

  • Lua! Nspire! Linux!
  • Editor
  • LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
  • **********
  • Posts: 1881
  • Rating: +206/-7
  • Linux!
    • View Profile
    • nothing...
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2012, 08:34:53 am »
Maybe it was because Slashdot linked to us?

Offline Eeems

  • Mr. Dictator
  • Administrator
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *************
  • Posts: 6265
  • Rating: +318/-36
  • little oof
    • View Profile
    • Eeems
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2012, 11:05:23 am »
I'm pretty sure its because of slashdot.
We are connected to stopforumspam.com so that is not the issue. We just have a lot more traffic then normal from new bots.
/e

Offline shmibs

  • しらす丼
  • Administrator
  • LV11 Super Veteran (Next: 3000)
  • ***********
  • Posts: 2132
  • Rating: +281/-3
  • try to be ok, ok?
    • View Profile
    • shmibbles.me
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #12 on: November 19, 2012, 11:59:06 am »
Well we could also make an extra anti-spam filter just like revsoft's. (linking calcs with manufacturers)

making things too difficult for new people to register isn't a good idea, but maybe something similar, to that effect, could help.

Offline DJ Omnimaga

  • Clacualters are teh gr33t
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
  • *
  • Posts: 55941
  • Rating: +3154/-232
  • CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
    • View Profile
    • Dream of Omnimaga Music
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #13 on: November 19, 2012, 01:07:21 pm »
I'm pretty sure its because of slashdot.
We are connected to stopforumspam.com so that is not the issue. We just have a lot more traffic then normal from new bots.

Nah, because the spam influx started the night before Omni got Slashdotted. Netham45 last night suspected that the bots finally got around CloudFlare, rendering CloudFlare innefective for spam protection.

Well we could also make an extra anti-spam filter just like revsoft's. (linking calcs with manufacturers)

making things too difficult for new people to register isn't a good idea, but maybe something similar, to that effect, could help.
True, especially considering Omnimaga is not only calc-related, so sometimes we get members who absolutely know nothing about calcs, such as TIMGUL refugees.
Hmm Netham45, do you know if any of your anti-spams were down last night? Because there were like 100+ new registrations and an unusual amount of spam posts. Normally since the new anti-spam measures last Spring there are only 2-4 registrations a day... O.O

TI-Freakware was hit as well it seems, but I'm unsure if they use the same anti-spam.

Don't know if its related, but UCF has been hit by quite a few bots recently too.
Didn't it also get hacked by the way? That was a bit scary when I got that e-mail. >.< I know TI-Freakware was hit by the spambot wave too, and on SMF, someone said he noticed a huge spike in spam in the last few days.

Offline Eeems

  • Mr. Dictator
  • Administrator
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *************
  • Posts: 6265
  • Rating: +318/-36
  • little oof
    • View Profile
    • Eeems
Re: Extreme spambot rush last night
« Reply #14 on: November 19, 2012, 01:13:33 pm »
I just checked the cloudflare analytics. it's threat hit count hasn't changed enough to make it seem that they found a way around it. I'd assume that these are just new bots that cloudflare hasn't encountered yet.
/e