TSD is under attack from a bot. We have had 370+ new members register today. Sparky has made it so no new members can post, legitimate users or not. All registrants today, and until sparky can fix this, will be banned. Not just the user name but the IP address, too. Please send an email to the shave den at gmail dot com (written out and spaced here so it doesn't get hit by the bot), if you are a real new member and want your IP address un-banned. Thanks!
Nah. Theyve been using bots for years to spam websites. Theyre usually just a program that you put a websites IP address into and they do all the work for you. Spammers getting creative is when they actually know how to write theyre own code and not get their IP address blocked.
Unfortunately, it's very easy to write such code, you don't even have to be smart to write it and even less so to use it... and usually they post from other hi-jacked servers.
I'd just like to say this about that... Hello to all 300 new wet shavers glad you found us. Don't forget about the October giveaway. Stop by the newbie forum and introduce yourself. Please set up a stagger pattern as we cannot simply answer all your questions at once.
Yep, and it will continue until Bobby handles the problem. He's at work still. It's only 3:42 pm here.
Hello all, sorry about the means I took this morning, but I discovered we had a problem about 5 minutes before I had to leave for work. The thought of hundreds of bots posting wasn't too good, so I locked down all new registrations.... figured i'd sort it out when I got off work.
Way to look out for us, Bobby! Nice not to have our site full of spammers all the time like some I have seen.
Okay, I am not up to speed on bots -- would the posts look just like any other member posts? I did not notice anywhere in the vicinity of 370 new members.
I've been deleting them. I removed a bunch this morning, and more this evening. This time, our safeguards failed to stop them from registering, but prevented them from posting. We've never been hit like we were today though. Sometimes we get a couple a day, but never hundreds. The bot is still constantly trying to register, but failing now. I'm gonna fix that soon enough too Normally their posts are just a giant advertisement, linking to a product, or more likely a porn site. It doesn't take much of that to really disrupt things, so we do our best to keep things smooth.
