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Oh Hum, The Wiki Has Been Spammed.

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2019 10:31 pm
by NormanDunbar
Anyone know a Toby Harris? Which might not be his real name of course. The details are:
A new user has registered. Here are the details:

User name : syreeta262
Full name : Toby Harris
E-mail : zemo@absolutelyawesome.net

Date : 2019/07/30 14:31
Browser :
IP-Address : 196.16.32.176
Hostname : 196.16.32.176
So, about 30 seconds later our first spam post was submitted. There was the usual blurb about how truly wonderful a certain web site was, plus a link. The usual crap which nobody in their right mind would fall for anyway. (Would they?)

Anyway, Big Brother - aka Norm - was watching and both the page and user account are now toast. Gone. Lost. No more.

The IP address shows the cr4p originated in Chicago. The mail domain doesn't appear to exist.
Screenshot_2019-07-30-22-27-47.png
I'm watching ........ ;)


Cheers,
Norm.

Re: Oh Hum, The Wiki Has Been Spammed.

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2019 11:20 pm
by vanpeebles
Nature of the beast sadly, the forum gets loads!

Re: Oh Hum, The Wiki Has Been Spammed.

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2019 11:42 pm
by NormanDunbar
I know. It's still a right PITA, even to sort out one spammer.

Cheers,
Norm.

Re: Oh Hum, The Wiki Has Been Spammed.

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 12:34 pm
by NormanDunbar
It seems our Tony Harris is a persistent bugger. He's logged in again as a new user and spammed again. I've installed a plugin to ban his IPs, but given that his ISP is dealing out IP addresses in the range 196.0.0.0/8, that's a lot of banning. I've also contacted his ISP and politely requested that our Tony be delay with most appropriately. We shall see.

Re: Oh Hum, The Wiki Has Been Spammed.

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 10:13 pm
by robheaton
Nice work Norm, thanks for looking into this.
If there is anything you need, please let us know.

Re: Oh Hum, The Wiki Has Been Spammed.

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 11:18 pm
by NormanDunbar
Evening Rob,

Well, Toby signed up with two new users tonight, so I shot them both down before he had a chance to spam again. I've amended every existing user to be in a new group, writer, rather than user, plus, the user group can now only read the Wiki. Newly registered users are automatically added to the user group.

That should work, but it means that valid new users need to request an update if they want to contribute. Which is a bit harsh, but at the moment with old Toby, I'm between a rock and the other thing!

We'll see how this works.

Cheers,
Norm.

Re: Oh Hum, The Wiki Has Been Spammed.

Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2019 8:27 am
by NormanDunbar
Well now, that's what I call service!

After our good friend Toby Harris continued signing up with new usernames and different IP addresses, the IP Banner plugin needed someone (aka me!) to insert every IP address in the range a.b.c.1 through a.b.c.254 - and quite honestly, life's too short! I spent a couple of hours, late last night, reconfiguring everyone as a writer and making the default user group read only - so when he signs up again, he'll be read only.

I raised an issue yesterday with the author of the IP Banning plugin (who is also the author of the Wiki software) asking for ranges of IPs to be able to be specified. I installed the new version this morning and Toby's entire range of possible IP addresses has now been banned.

Maybe, just maybe, we've beaten the scum bag!


Cheers,
Norm.

Re: Oh Hum, The Wiki Has Been Spammed.

Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2019 10:40 am
by Pr0f
a 2 bit scumbag who couldn't make it in a 32 bit world. :D

Re: Oh Hum, The Wiki Has Been Spammed.

Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2019 11:21 am
by NormanDunbar
I'm still 8 bit myself - makes me look a wee bit "jagged" round the edges! ;)

Cheers,
Norm.

Re: Oh Hum, The Wiki Has Been Spammed.

Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2019 1:20 pm
by Pr0f
NormanDunbar wrote:I'm still 8 bit myself - makes me look a wee bit "jagged" round the edges! ;)

Cheers,
Norm.
Nothing wrong with 8 bit - I'm just finishing off a ZX Nuvo 128 kit, couldn't resist putting a new board in the old rubber speccy case :-)