No Newbies - Answered

Eloise Goth · Post by **Eloise Goth** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 11:09 am

Why are no new members allowed to join? the forum will die on it's feet without fresh blood. Look at the place...I've seen more life at a funeral home.

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 12:00 pm

The forum is getting spammed by about 100 false accounts a day.

I am waiting for the site owner to allow me to upgrade phpBB (the forum board) and to introduce a verification scheme (Captcha) to the registration process.

I am sorry but the site owner has turned off the new registrations, not I.

Davita · Post by **Davita** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 11:40 am

No way to firewall off the spammers? Just a question... As for not being able to upgrade could be a money problem. Anyway, I'm just going to live with the situation and hope eventually it's fixed.

Now if we could just get more of the existing members to talk rather than simply read.

I haven't found anyone who hasn't played nice with others so what's the worries girls?

Cindy Louise · Post by **Cindy Louise** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 4:25 pm

Susan wrote:The forum is getting spammed by about 100 false accounts a day.

It's not just this board. I'm a member of a few other boards (non CD) and they have all been slammed with spam accounts. One got so bad with automated registrations that it crashed the boards for about a day.

I see only two options to counter this.

Have the boards monitored by staff 24/7 to watch for spammers (not feasible)

Or close the boards to new registrants until a software upgrade is in place.

If there's someone who truly wants to join they will wait. One of my boards only has "open days" three or four times a year when you can apply to join. I waited about two months to join there. While waiting I could still read the posts so it wasn't that bad. People hate spammers and usually understand why things have to be done.

Anyway just my 2 cents.

Love to all,
CL

Anthony Simon · Post by **Anthony Simon** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 4:45 pm

Susan wrote:The forum is getting spammed by about 100 false accounts a day.

I am waiting for the site owner to allow me to upgrade phpBB (the forum board) and to introduce a verification scheme (Captcha) to the registration process.

I am sorry but the site owner has turned off the new registrations, not I.

The question is WHY is the site owner doing this. Is it because:

a) The person doesn't think there's a problem
b) The person doesn't think there's enough of a problem
c) Cost Issues
d) Some sort of communication breakdown
e) There actually isn't a problem despite what people like me think
f) Planet Zarg has declared war on Planet Bleep and therefore all bets are off.

Paula G · Post by **Paula G** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 5:59 pm

Zarg is actually now at piece with Bleep, however the ongoing situation with Zargon will not be resolved untill Krill is either deposed or voluntarily resigns as life president. Apart from that, beware the one that calls himself "Cameron", he is a Zilon from the planet Pharg and is therefore not to be trusted...................

Caith · Post by **Caith** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 8:39 pm

The problem of automated spamming registrations is so bad you would not believe it. The spammers have already defeated most of the CAPTCHA systems available, anyway. The spammers are ruthless and don't care whose site they deface, because they get paid to post links that refer people to their sites and to post malware/viruses that infect board users' computers. When the site is overwhelmed by hundreds of these automated registrations each week, it becomes more effort than board administrators have time available to manage.

The more popular a site is, the more visible it becomes as a target for the spammers. When our site was hit with a SQL injection attack a few years ago, it became clear the spammers had targeted us. The spam problem has only become worse since then.

It's not easy migrating from the current release of the bulletin board system phpBB to the newer version, because the entire board software has been redesigned and rewritten in a different fashion. The styles and images we all know and find comfortable here are not easily retained when migrating to the new phpBB software. It's an enormous technical effort, requiring time on the level of many weeks just to get started and prepared for the effort.

Please be patient as Susan and others research better ways of handling the spam problem. They will greatly appreciate it.

Anthony Simon · Post by **Anthony Simon** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 8:53 am

Thank you for explaining Caith. I appreciate it (and imagine I'm not alone). It is much better (IMHO) to know the gory details because at least then we can have some rationale for the situation rather than just...well, making one up.

This leads me to another point. I feel the statement:

"This forum is shut down to new registrations. Please check back later" is kind of bald and, let's say, lacking in empathy. I mean if I turned up here, found it and then checked back regularly, I'd pretty soon decide that it wasn't worth bothering anymore. I'd also jump to the (wrong) conclusion that the people here didn't seem to care very much about potential new posters - just because it doesn't let them in on the reasons they are being blocked.

There is one other thing I can mention but which, judging by your post isn't liable to be that soluble. I do always feel vaguely guilty that new people aren't allowed in. After all there is a support group element to this place and, who knows if some people who are getting blocked do actually really quite need this sort of place as an outlet.

Davita · Post by **Davita** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 8:53 pm

Caith, yes, thanks for the details. I had no idea that the spammers had broken through the usual defense other sites have used.

If spammers are taking down sites, are they not breaking some law for which a federal law enforcement or at least some local entity can be brought in? They have tools to hunt with that I suspect we all don't have.

Again, thanks for trying and thanks for the update.

Michelle M · Post by **Michelle M** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:03 pm

The problem is most of these spambots are on people's personal computers and they are unaware that they have these things. The people running the spambots are in another country that has no laws about it or the country doesn't care to enforce them...for the right price.

SilverLady(SO) · Post by **SilverLady(SO)** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 10:31 am

Hi, Ladies -

The forum has been and will be shut down to all new registrations due to our being hit by no less than 70-100 spambot registrations per day.

As you will recall, this situation started in early January 2011 at which time we first closed down the registration system for a period of time. When we brought it back up, the spambots were still targeting us, so we shut it down again. After several attempts to re-open registrations, with the spambots still targeting us, I recommended - and the forum's owner concurred - to keep the forum closed to all new registrations until such time that an upgrade to our software could be accomplished.

The spambots are not coming from personal pc's - we've traced all of them back to their originating foreign countries and have banned them 'at the root' (entire internet provider/s) - but we still get more. Given that the spambots originate in foreign countries and they have not 'taken down' our site (not by any means!), there are no legal remedies available (federal or civil).

Yes, we need to upgrade to phpBB3 and the forum's owner is very much aware of this, she is completely 'on board' with it, and there are no communication breakdowns; however, I do not believe that she has purchased the required software upgrade(s) and until she does so, Susan's hands are virtually tied.

I do know that she (the forum's owner) has by far more important things going on in her life besides this forum and those are taking precedence, with which I fully concur. Yes, this forum is important, but it's not the 'only thing' in life. No, I am not at liberty to discuss those issues so please don't ask or speculate about them - I guarantee that your speculations will be wrong.

Contrary to popular mis-information, the forum has always had - and uses - a CAPTCHA program ("verification scheme") for every registration, and we have ever since this forum started in 2003. Despite constant and repeated corrections on my part, this blatant falsehood continues to be told by those same people and it annoys me to no end.

The problem is that, like Caith mentioned above, the spammers/spambots have found ways to defeat most of the CAPTCHA systems available, including ours.

In short, the only way to get a better handle on the spambots is to upgrade the forum's software, which is not an easy undertaking (to which Caith can attest as she did our last major upgrade in 2008).

It is not feasible to have the forum monitored 24/7 for spambots - - this forum is run entirely by volunteers, not a single moderator or administrator has ever been paid nor will they.

Until such time as the forum's owner purchases the required software upgrades, and those upgrades can be installed and run without major incident, the forum will continue to be closed to all new registrations.

Those serious 'future new members' who visit us and want to join will - and do - appreciate the fact that we are taking all steps feasible to ensure a safe, spam-free and virus/malware-free forum for all our members (and guests).

- SL