"New" Form of Spam
 

I say "new" only in the sense that this is the first I've noticed it. Maybe this is something you've been running into ever since vBulletin introduced the comments on your profile section.

Say you're an aggressive administrator. You don't just have every anti-spamming tool you can find, you've got the most effective anti-spamming tools you can find. And one of the most effective forms of fighting spam, is you. Spam threads last no more than a few minutes, if that. Not just chatty members trying to boost post count, I mean spammers. Porn, gaming, window washers and now, for some odd reason, water filters. And you just don't ban spammers. You delete spammers. One offense, no appeals. What's the need for an appeal, as they're likely automated posters anyway?

After a while, the spammers don't bother. I don't know why. Maybe they just don't consider it worth the effort/resources to only have content up for a fraction of a hour. Maybe you're just that good. Or maybe...

Attachment 124538

I call these guys the "Self Spammers". Here's what they do. They don't send PMs, or VMs to anybody. They don't post threads or generic "Thank You" replies or start Social Groups or anything else. All they do is join and send one Visitor Message.

To themselves.

What does this accomplish? Nothing much really. But consider if you have three or four of these guys registering every day. I did, for about six months. I had nearly a hundred user profile pages with junk links to junks deals, junk porn, junk water filters, junk wedding planners and somebody who really thinks my users will be interested in "Driving Games". (The most specific and niche form of spam I've ever seen. And I'm counting the Farm Porn links!) Sometimes, they don't post a message, but check they're signature, and there are the links. Sometimes they do both. Either way, now you've got links to all kinds of shady content right there on your own website. Google crawl bot or not, that's not what I signed up for.

So, what I've done is enabled my Email Upon New User feature (well, actually, I've always had this enabled, I just started paying attention to it more) and checking each of my new users. I also edited the MEMBERINFO template to include a handy bold red delete link. I did this to both my desktop and mobile skin, so I coule likewise delete users from my phone. Handy when baby has fallen asleep on my chest again and I can't see the laptop and try to breath at the same time.

So, maybe you've see this before. Maybe you've got thousands of these on your forum. I suggest taking time to look at your most recently registered members and consider adding that delete button. This public service announcement brought to you by the letters M and D and the campaign to put Wookies in Disney's Animal Kingdom.

Ahh you noticed this too eh... yeap same here I noticed it a while back... I kept seeing those funky names registering on a clients site you know the ones just just scream spammer... no posts... I visited their profiles and sure enough there was a message to themselves a link to buy prescription drugs online.

Glad you posted this I simply did away with all the members and called it a day but it's hard to detect so I actually need to go do another round of reviewing members on that site and others be forewarned as to what DJ posted.

We dont allow messages in profiles, so no issue there.

I recently modified the memberinfo templates to cut out the display of sigs and profile information until they had at least two posts.

I've always hated those Guest posts when you delete a user's account, so I don't delete inactive accounts on that merit alone, but I have been deleting accounts inactive for a year or more with no post count. That trimmed off a lot of those that I had been missing. Now, I take a somewhat twisted joy deleting accounts seconds after they've posted. Not sure why, but I'm chalking it down to me being a weirdo.

I don't even allow visitor messages... seems like stuff best served by either PM or a real forum post IMO.

When people do spam the forum I always use the "Delete as Spam" feature to ban them and delete all posts in 1 step.

is this due to signatures or only to VMs to their own profile?
I moderate new users and VMs, so that should prevent this.

Sounds interesting. Can you post this info "how to"

Would be great...

Thanks

Both actually. Either/or.

I'm much more fond of having a user list with at least one post per user, then a heafty list of banned and 0 post users. Just seems like a waste of database columns. But like I said, I find that delete link I added to the profiles immensely satisfying. I have a no tolerance policy when to comes to link spamming. I don't even want their information on my board. Which is kind of funny, because I'll let people go off topic all the live long day. Just don't try to sell me water filters! <twitch>

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I forgot about the other, more advanced form of spam I've been seeing lately. Never used to run into it before this year, but this one seems to be some form of preprogrammed responses to familiar titles. Like, I had posted an MSNBC review of the Aliens Vs Predator video game, so the post refrences the title and posts a "prerecorded" message using the title and generic info about the genre. The same user would go around posting the same style messaged in poor english on several threads, following the same MO. Like the one I deleted today:

Or like the one posted in a review titled "Crisis -> Farcry 2" in the forum title "PC Gaming":

Or a thread about Act Raiser, where I briefly mention Soul Reaver, and we get these two replies two years later:

And of course, their sigs had links to auto-insurance and more water filters. The posts make just enough references to the forum title, the thread title and one reference to something in the thread to try and come off legitimate and maybe even bypass a lot of administrators' standards on spamming.

I would be greatful if you posted the info on adding that delete button/link and
info how to block users from using profile for x number of posts.

I tucked the delete link inside the <if> conditional for the Edit User Profile link. The code in red is what I added:


Obviously, if you've renamed the location of your Admin CP, you'd want to account for that in the link.

I added that line in memberinfo - I still see no link...

What version of vB are you on? Does the Edit User Profile link show normally?

4.1 PL2

I do not see an edit profile until i like
on my profile then I see the edit profile link.

otherwise I see nothing that pertains to
editing a profile if i visit a members url.

This is strange.. I also noticed that the visitor area
vanishes when I log out as a user, I can only see this
area when I am logged in as a user or admin.

When i click on Friends/Infraction tabs, blank, it shows nothing.

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I assume if members can not see profile links, then search
engines will not be able to see them either, i guess that
is a good thing, as it looks like they can only be seen
once the member logs in....

Ah, well that explains it. Anything pre-vB4 uses a whole new layout and conditionals/variables. Let me see if I can whip something up. Too much coffee tonight anyway.

honestly, since their profile does not show until they
log in, do i really need it? As long as SE cant see
their profile junk, then I am ok...

I logged in as a reg user, posted a link in my profile, logged
out, I can not see any links, so i would think SE can not see them either
if nothing shows....I can see the link as long as I am online, but once
I am off, the link no longer appears to show.

For vBulletin 4.x, try adding this block of code in red to that same MEMBERINFO template:

Also, add this image to your images/misc directory. https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2010/12/29.png

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Matter of preference, really. I'm not concerned about Search Engines, myself. It's the links themselves I don't want. Particularly when all of it is just scams, consumer traps, malware or porn. I don't want my users finding their way there just from perusing a new user's profile.

Where do you disable visitor messaging?

User Profile Options in vB Options. Also, Visitor Messaging Options has a number of features you can turn on and off, like URL BBCode and whatnot.

I found it in the usergroup options. I tried it where you suggested and it still showed. It would be nice to have a global option to turn off the visitor messaging for everyone.

Really? Usergroups should handle usage rights, but the vB Option should enable/disable the whole system.

I thought so, too, but it still showed the visitor messaging in the profile until I disabled it in each of the usergroups. There was no option to disable it anywhere in the settings. It would have made it easier if there was.

I have a question about the delete user link you posted, will it come up with a box to make sure you want to delete it before it deletes it?

It's actually just a link to the Delete User Profile option in Admin CP's Edit User Profile dropdown menu. So yes, it takes you to a confirmation message first.

Good. I didn't want to test it until I was sure. Also, I tried to use {vb:raw admincpdir} for the admin directory name for those that have their admincp directory renamed, but it doesn't seem to work there.

...didn't work?

No, since the admincpdir variable is not pre-registered in the MEMBERINFO template. I added a plugin to the member_start hook that assigns it and pre-registers it and then it works.

Heheh, I was actually in the middle of doing that. :) I'm just getting sleepy and I'm apparently not writing my syntax correctly.

Add this to the member_start hook and you can use the admincp variable:

still does not work.

and while adding this, someone signed up just to drop their link in...

how nice of them...

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I think this is too much trouble anyway...

I need a mod that can control the use of profile sig usage
lets say until they reach some post limit....

Really no reason why it shouldn't work. It's just pasted in code in the MEMBERINFO template. You don't have anything modifying your profiles layout, do you?

Thanks for the tip Digital Jedi. This is one weakness the spammers have found in our armour.

We need a feature by which spammers cannot post links in their profiles without a minimum number of posts.

http://armour.ws/community/memberlist.php

I have this issue. Most of my users (2,700) just register and place a link in their profile or just place in their signature. This has been recently combatted with the help of some plugins from vb.org.

It is a shame. :( Would have loved it if most of those who signed up were real users. Could have at least go my forum going a bit.

I'm really considering of deleting all my users. :(

I delete users who have 0 post count and have been members for more than six-months or so. You don't have to delete all your users. Sometimes I even send out emails letting the accounts know what I'm about to do. I don't usually give the more than a day or so.

But what about all those lurkers? Maybe you should check the "last activity" date :).

Heheh, well, I don't have any, actually. I check my Who's Online quite frequently. I also want to encourage posting. I'm not big on membership just for the sake of membership. If they want to join, at least say hello. At least contribute, even if it's small.