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WTF?!

Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 9:22 am
by geneb
To the new user that answered the "What's the smallest printer we sell" signup question with

"seriously? what do I care about the smallest printer you sell! Fucking stupid!"

It's an anti-spam measure, jackass.

(and no, I'm not going to identify the user)

g.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 11:04 am
by Jimustanguitar
I'm new here. It was me.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 11:19 am
by AlanZ
Ah, the joys of administering a community.

I manage (professionally) a community with >400,000 members.
You would be amazed at the diversity of people/issues we have to deal with.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 12:46 pm
by DeltaCon
WTF...!
I I remember correctly there is a message saying: "As a measure of anti-spam we ask you this question"...
But I have to admit that during my own signup I had to open a second page to the website... :lol:

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 1:34 pm
by Eric
So what's the actual researchable answer?

Droplit V2 clearly has the smallest build area, by far. The overall dimensions aren't given. But is it smaller than the Eris?

Sounds like they passed the "I'm a human" test, in any case.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 2:51 pm
by KAS
Lets see if we can get close. :mrgreen:

<kersnip!>

How 'bout we don't? :D

g.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 6:55 pm
by Captain Starfish
So their response was fine, then: it indicated fairly clearly they weren't a bot.

Was your forum engine smart enough to work that out? :D

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 8:25 pm
by IMBoring25
I don't know about that. Could be Tay...

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 6:48 am
by KAS
<kersnip!>

Oh man, I was on the right track :lol:

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 8:38 am
by geneb
Well it's not MY forum engine - I'm just a minion. :)

I probably shouldn't have posted the original message, but Rudy McRudepants really set me off. :D

g.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 8:42 am
by mhackney
We can wait until his first post here and taunt him. I know who it is and I agree Gene, what a stupid way to answer a question that obviously is trying to protect its membership from spammers. In fact, the changes we implemented over a year ago have eliminated 100% of the spam posts we used to get. Remember those days? Ads for Viagra, sneakers, other printers?

As for the answer, if they named any actual SeeMeCNC product I would have granted permission. This question is to keep bots and Chinese and Eastern European minion spammers out.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 8:46 am
by DeltaCon
mhackney wrote:Remember those days? Ads for Viagra, sneakers, other printers?
Especially the latter is a PITA! :lol:

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 12:07 pm
by AlanZ
Fortunately, you guys likely have no idea just how persistent and technically sophisticated the professional spammers are (especially those promoting Korean casinos).

The amount of time and effort spent on spammer countermeasures is enormous. I spent 3 hours this morning trying to identify a loophole that permitted content to get past our elaborate countermeasures and got posted on the site I administer.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 12:48 pm
by KAS
AlanZ wrote:Fortunately, you guys likely have no idea just how persistent and technically sophisticated the professional spammers are (especially those promoting Korean casinos).

The amount of time and effort spent on spammer countermeasures is enormous. I spent 3 hours this morning trying to identify a loophole that permitted content to get past our elaborate countermeasures and got posted on the site I administer.


From a security standpoint the main issue is most forum/CMS administrators use off the shelf scripts designed as addons/extensions for these popular packages such as phpBB. Custom one off scripts or heavily modified extensions stand better chances to ward off the spammers because it takes longer to circumvent code that isnt easily dissected because the code isnt "open sourced".

A spammer can take a popular mod/extension/addon or even the built in protection like what phpBB has and literally line by line review everything for any weaknesses. Once that weakness is determined, it can be used on thousands and thousands of phpBB forums until it's patched or the security is changed.

My go to harsh control is straight blocking the offending county using .htaccess. You can use Google Analytics to determine those IP ranges with high bounce rates. Yes you can proxy/vpn around it, but it knocks off the unmotivated spammers from the start.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 12:49 pm
by Jimustanguitar
mhackney wrote:We can wait until his first post here and taunt him.
He'll probably hate the manual :)

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 2:05 pm
by AlanZ
KAS,
I guess I wind up dealing with the highly motivated spammers. We can't embargo posts from particular countries... Lots of legal issues there. In my case, we are not using low price, general use forum software. We use enterprise grade collaboration platforms, and yet the Enterprises get attacked... Prime targets. Let's just say that some of the best spam countermeasure folks in the world are fighting a continuing battle against the professional spammers.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 3:44 pm
by mhackney
Jimustanguitar wrote:
mhackney wrote:We can wait until his first post here and taunt him.
He'll probably hate the manual :)
+1 :lol:

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 7:13 pm
by CodonExe
:shock: Sorry, that may have been me. :mrgreen:

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 8:38 pm
by Xenocrates
Heh. Certainly a unique response. It does very much tell people you aren't a robot, although it is a fairly aggressive response to the question.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 8:57 pm
by Jimustanguitar
CodonExe wrote::shock: Sorry, that may have been me. :mrgreen:
We like to have fun here, don't sweat it!

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Sat May 21, 2016 12:55 am
by geneb
CodonExe wrote::shock: Sorry, that may have been me. :mrgreen:
Nope. :)

g.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 8:10 am
by Eaglezsoar
Curious people want to know if Gene threw his glasses when he read that.

Re: WTF?!

Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 8:32 am
by Qdeathstar
I agree with the new user, who cares about small tools.