HELP! is there a moderator in the house?

[Mary D]

Massive spam attack! Poster "greenaonir aifsengh" now has 270 spam posts! I did send a PM to Roger but suspect that it's the wrong time of day to contact him. I don't know who else is a moderator here. I'm of course red-flagging when I run into a new one.

With the amount, this does sound more like a hacker attack….

[John Ebner]

Yeah, all in about 3 hours. Looks like a bot of some sort. If you look at the forum index and the last post made for each category almost everyone is made by this thing.

Edit: Now it's going by the name "SPAM". "SPAM" has 284 posts in 3 hours.

[Mary D]

The name change to SPAM means a moderator has finally stepped in to stop the incoming flow. I hope they'll delete at least the most recent posts–270 is an awful lot!

[John Ebner]

Initially I thought SPAM was a replacement for the other name since those were the newest ones on the index list but apparently they are both doing it simultaneously since they have both been at it for 3 hours.

[Mary D]

I just got an answer from Roger to my PM–he has blocked the spammer and has asked Ryan for the ability to do a mass delete of everything by an individual poster. There's absolutely no way he can delete 270 individual posts, plus the considerable amount left from the previous attack 5 days ago!

[John Ebner]

That would certainly make things easier. Thank you, Mary, for your effort in this matter.

[Harald Hope]

The guy is not a hacker, he's doing his job, which is to generate posts with links on high quality sites lik bpl, if possible. He uses software to do that, there's no hacking involved. You can buy it too, it costs about 600 bucks retail. He makes his living doing this, it's his job, just as you make your living doing whatever it is you do to earn a living. He'd use different user names if the forums were moderated better, but since bpl is letting him use the same one, that's even easier for him, he'll post stuff until that user name dies, then generate a new one, takes him no time.

That's a very good tool too by the way, good quality programming, assuming it's the one I think it is.

[Nick G]

Looks like we've got another one.

[Charles P]

maybe there should be a rule disallowing the posting of links for new accounts until you 10 forum posts or something. that would probably prevent these annoying spam attacks. there could be other more hi-tech solutions too. hopefully something can be figured out though, its frustrating!

[Mike M]

^ agreed, many forums have that rule and it cuts the spam down siginificantly

[Mary D]

Another attack is happening now! I made a list of suggestions in the "Spam" thread in Chaff, if you can find it.

Why is this forum being hit when others aren't?

Possible reasons:
-Antique software
-Only one moderator
-Owner says no software changes
-Owner doesn't use the forum

I really feel sorry for poor Roger out there on the other side of the world, stuck with it all!

[BER —]

There is a certain ironic humor here…

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Mary

> Why is this forum being hit when others aren't?
Word is that many others ARE being hit. I guess 'BPL' was near the top of the new target list.

Cheers

[Author]

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