Spammer Epidemic

[FlyDave]

Man, this is crazy! I guess I don't spend much time on sites like this because I've never seen this much CRAP in my life!

I'm for making Mooneyspace free to read but to begin posting you need to pay $1 and submit some credentials that are verifiable (which could take from 1 to 3 days. I know this creates a lot more work for Craig but maybe he could share these duties with a few of the users that have offered. I'm in for helping.

If people can read the site they will get a feel for the value of posting. If they dont see the value in spending $1 for posting on Mooneyspace then they probably shouldn't own an airplane of any sort!

In conjunction with my suggestions above, I also think we should find these spam-botting assholes and break their fingers.....just a thought.....

[bnicolette]

Guys help me understand just what the heck is going on here. What is the purpose of these spammers/bots of posting gibberish on this site. I guess I get the "drug" posts, but what about the stuff that is meaningless? I am not a computer literate..........should I be worried about a potential virus from this stuff?

I would be happy to donate more if that's what it takes to remove this stuff from the site and block them from future entry. This stuff kind of worries me but that's just because I don't know better I suppose.

[scottfromiowa]

Spammers spamming the link on anti-spamming...Nice. Is this just fun to them? Do people really buy non-prescription versions of prescription drugs? Kind of like Mexican Pot in U.S....if there was NO DEMAND it would go away...Ruining site/experience for me. Get it fixed please tech guys...Once money changes hands there are expectations for quality. Still no response/fix to the avatar issue either (really small size alotted)...

[DaV8or]

At this point, MooneySpace is effectively dead. I logged in this morning only to find 8+ pages of spam. It must corrispond to the new software and site upgrade. We didn't have this problem before. Anybody have Craig's phone number or email? I don't think he checks in here all that often.

[johnggreen]

I'm signing off period. The site is ruined and the only product of coming here is frustration. I'll check back in a couple of months to see if a solution has been found. I will say, that if the administrators ever decide to make this a legitimate site, with restricted, non-anonymous membership, I will be happy to pay an annual fee. It works on other sites, especially a full non-anonymous registration. It not only keeps out the spammers, it also keeps out the punks who want to play pilot and criticize from the protection of an anonymous computer. I've been preaching that ever since i joined.

If for no other reason, Mooneyspace is valuable for an exchange of maintenance and parts information.

See you later,

jgreen

[Awful_Charlie]

I've tried the 'Report' link for reporting a post and user or two to Craig in the hope that got his attention, but I guess he is busy elsewhere. I've also tried disabling the Jop-whatever account by (trying to) signing in with duff passwords, but it seems despite the captcha on the new user signup page, they still just keep coming

[mooniac58]

Sorry guys I have been flying over the last couple days from Santa Fe to Seattle and answering reports was very tough.

We surely have a problem here and I think we need to attack it from a couple angles:

- Challenge/answer questions. Note that we just can't ask people N-number, base, etc because nothing stops a spammer from putting bogus data here

- We are going to need some volunteer moderators. Before you can accept a position as a moderator you need to be very web savvy. I don't have the time/resources to train people how to use the IPBoard stuff so you need to be the type of person that can just look at a new system/interface and figure it out on your own.

- Once we have some good moderators in place that cover most hours of the day I think we should look into a system where all new accounts have to be approved by a moderator before they can post. etc. Then we can ask things like aircraft reg number, location. etc and help to get a feel if they are legit or spammers.

We will win this fight guys! We did not have the problems with the other forums because they were not a standard "canned" code package - they were mostly programmed by myself so they did not have a "blueprint" of how to hack it open.

[mooniac58]

I just added a bunch of challenge questions that are aviation related. Let's see if that slows them down.

[OR75]

wait a second !

just as i was going to place an order, they are mostly gone !!

[Gone]

Glad to have our site back.

[Bob]

Craig,

The Model question shows a example "The model of your Mooney (ie M20J)"

Is their a way to help without giving a answer that will help them to log on?

If I was manually joining to spam a site, I would just put in M20J after seeing your example.

I assume there is a list of Mooney models that the answer must come from.One thought is M20H or M20I

Another may be to use M20L as an example if you want to use a "real" example, but exclude it from the approved list. This would make it hard for only about a dozen, worldwide,actual PFM owners to register. Most Mooney PFM owners would just change it to a J to join the site.

I'll tell you, the internet is getting so destroyed by virus's and spam. What a shame to molest such a good tool, Pretty sad!

CRAIG, THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL YOUR WORKLOAD TO KEEP THIS SITE RUNNING WELL FOR ALL OF US!

[mooniac58]

Craig,

The Model question shows a example "The model of your Mooney (ie M20J)"

Is their a way to help without giving a answer that will help them to log on?

If I was manually joining to spam a site, I would just put in M20J after seeing your example.

I assume there is a list of Mooney models that the answer must come from.One thought is M20H or M20I

Another may be to use M20L as an example if you want to use a "real" example, but exclude it from the approved list. This would make it hard for only about a dozen, worldwide,actual PFM owners to register. Most Mooney PFM owners would just change it to a J to join the site.

I'll tell you, the internet is getting so destroyed by virus's and spam. What a shame to molest such a good tool, Pretty sad!

CRAIG, THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL YOUR WORKLOAD TO KEEP THIS SITE RUNNING WELL FOR ALL OF US!

The questions are not Mooney specific or related to your ownership,etc. instead they are like "what control surface controls an aircrafts roll?" - in other words it needs to be something that was a right or wrong answer...our site is open to everyone, not just owners of Mooney's so I don't want to make a new user feel like they need to own a Mooney to join.

Remember that these spam posts are mostly coming from robots, not real people. The key is to ask a question that really any human could answer. I made them aviation related for a little extra protection.

Seems to be working so far, lets hope it lasts!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[rbridges]

The questions are not Mooney specific or related to your ownership,etc. instead they are like "what control surface controls an aircrafts roll?" - in other words it needs to be something that was a right or wrong answer...our site is open to everyone, not just owners of Mooney's so I don't want to make a new user feel like they need to own a Mooney to join.

Remember that these spam posts are mostly coming from robots, not real people. The key is to ask a question that really any human could answer. I made them aviation related for a little extra protection.

Seems to be working so far, lets hope it lasts!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

thanks, it was nice to see the general mooney discussion cleaned up.

[201er]

I'm familiar with moderating forums but spend all too much time fighting spam on my other forum as is. I'd be happy to join as moderator, learn the system, write a guide for other less tech savy moderators to follow and only occasionally use the moderator capabilities if a piece of spam is starting my straight in the face but not to spend a lot of time looking for it to destroy.

[OR75]

Another possibly very simple way of doing it (if the number of people per day joining is within reason):

rather than grant immediate access, have a form asking why you want to join The few words shoud give a hint that the person applying is not a spammer.

I believe that by not granting immediate access, that will keep 99% of the spammers out.

Again that assumes that the number of people joining per day is not too high (keep the admin work burden low).

[Bob]

Craig,

Just noticed the UGG guy added a new member and posted again. His sign-on is "wensteluny". He is manually doing this without a spambot. His model started with a "M" but is not a Mooney model. I think you should start chargeing a fee ($5 or $10??) to help stop this. Good luck on this BS on your plate! Very Sad!

Bob

[mooniac58]

Actually this guy and the other spammers I am seeing now are older accounts. They registered tons of them and seem to be going back to some older accounts now. Since I added the challenge questions though signups have dropped to under 2 per day (it was 50-70 per day before).

It will take a little time to weed out these older accounts - but the influx has been pretty much halted.

Keep reporting this stuff when you see it and I will clean it out and ban the IP addresses and accounts.

[carusoam]

Craig, You are the man!

Thanks again,

-a-