dummy members?

[chslaundry]

Originally Posted by Howard

Ok, I am officially intrigued. What exactly is a spam bot, and what does it do once it is here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spambot

check the part under "forum spambot". basically, these bots become members and then just create posts/comments that consists of nothing other than advertisements or links to their sites.

and if one thinks that "captchas" would prevent this, check out this

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/te...26captcha.html

[kimfenolio]

I go on vacation for one week and the bots take over! Everything is now resolved. Thanks!

[Howard]

Originally Posted by kimfenolio

I go on vacation for one week and the bots take over! Everything is now resolved. Thanks!

So, if you killed all the bots, does that make you a Terminator ?

[kimfenolio]

Originally Posted by Howard

So, if you killed all the bots, does that make you a Terminator ?

Ooh I like that!

[Duane]

Lets see here.... Kim is on vacation for a week and we have not heard from Case in a week or so....

What should we think about that?

[kimfenolio]

Oh you boys are ever so amusing! I got to enjoy the wonders of Canada for a week. Good friends, my fiance and son, and many great memories. Case went on vacation prior to my departure, though I do not know when he will return. Alternate staff has been tending to the board in absence of your traditional moderation team. Wave and say hello!

[CanCanCase]

I had a whole witty explanation - basically you guys hit on all of the key points of the spam attack and oddball members - typed out on my iPhone then I gave up squinting in the sun!

Yes, the group analysis of what was going on was spot on. I also took my family on a 1500+ mile vacation dragging our travel trailer and some model airplanes through Oregon, SE Washington and N Idaho. The day we returned home, a 53' container van with my new washers and dryers showed up, so now it's a crazy few weeks while we get everything installed, connected and running... then a bit of finish work and we'll be open for business at #4.

Just because I'm in the business and I get a kick out of snooping in others' operations, I intentionally packed us with 5 days' worth of clothing for a 10 day trip. The morning of day 5, we loaded up a roll of dollar coins, a plastic mayonnaise jar of quarters, a few tide pods and a large basket of dirty laundry and googled up the nearest laundromat. Being confident that I was prepared with both quarters and dollar coins, can you imagine my surprise when we walked into an ESD SmartCard operated store... I actually got to chat with the owner who happily took me up on my offer to trade one of my EasyCards for one of his SmartCards...seems we both have a novelty collection of other laundromat cards. Saved me the $2 deposit on a new card too! ;-)

I'm un-officially back, but the next 3-4 weeks are rather busy with construction, programming new operations, 2 more weekend fly-ins and sending my oldest daughter back to Alaska for the school season.

-Case

[Vince Runza]

Hey, I'm a real human and I can't even view my own profile:

"Vince Runza, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

1. Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
2. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation."

How about it? Is there a third option, like, "We know it's you and we're being annoying, human!"

No, really!

Vince Runza

[kimfenolio]

Originally Posted by Vince Runza

Hey, I'm a real human and I can't even view my own profile:

"Vince Runza, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

1. Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
2. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation."

How about it? Is there a third option, like, "We know it's you and we're being annoying, human!"

No, really!

Vince Runza

Vince you are indeed a real human, but you've not posted enough to qualify as an "established" member. This is all an automated process and at that point, the board allows your profile to be created and go public. This occurs with all new bulletin board users. This prevents spammers and solicitors from generating bad links and from clogging up the database with bad registrations like what we experienced recently.

[jh]

Originally Posted by kimfenolio

Vince you are indeed a real human, but you've not posted enough to qualify as an "established" member. This is all an automated process and at that point, the board allows your profile to be created and go public. This occurs with all new bulletin board users. This prevents spammers and solicitors from generating bad links and from clogging up the database with bad registrations like what we experienced recently.

Aha! This is why there have been so many dummy accounts but none of them have been able to spam. Great job!