NEW MEMBERS vs SPAMMERS

I apologies if you are seeking membership with the Grasshopper Forums and have been declined in recent days. Please try again but make sure you include sensible information about yourself. The more you provide the easier it is for me and others to distinguish you as a valued member.

This evening alone I have had 40 new membership applications only 1 of which I have accepted. The majority of those were easily identifiable as spammers. There were about 5 that could go either way, but I erred on the side of caution and declined them as we are being inundated with a very persistent group of spammers as of late.

New members please try again..... spammers you can just go and boil your circuit boards in a vat of Dhaka's finest curry

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by ng5 Alex on October 28, 2013 at 10:28am

yes walking dead sucks.

breaking bad is better to watch!!

:-p

Permalink Reply by Jesus Galvez on October 28, 2013 at 4:47am

Why not add a find endorser option in the registration page? This would enable the registrant to find a friend in grasshopper3d, and until the endorser doesn't acknowledge that he knows that person, the registration would be frozen or limited.

Since some people might not want to be bother at all, I guess this would also need an option in the personal settings to allow you to opt out or opt in.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on October 28, 2013 at 5:35am

Nice Idea but I can see two flaws in its application. (I don't even know if its possible need to ask Scott)

I see a number of people replying to the Email type spammer that says: "Dear friend, I like your page but I am shy please send photos to Maria15364@yahoo.com" So only with a bit of work on the spammers part can they be accepted.
Once a spammer is accepted they can just endorse other spammers.

I think the method we use at the moment is not too dissimilar to this approach. As they have to go through a vetting process. The ones we see on the site itself are a tiny fraction compared to those that apply.

I would prefer a system in place that stops the application process because they have no interest in Grasshopper rather than its users.

Permalink Reply by Jesus Galvez on October 28, 2013 at 5:59am

Once a spammer is accepted they can just endorse other spammers.

That's a big gotcha! :o

Stackoverflow has a very nice system of privileges for managing all sorts of things. I'm not saying do the same, but maybe it brings up some ideas.

And instead the report link mentioned by djordje they have the flag button on every page.

Nice to talk with you again Danny.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on October 28, 2013 at 11:17am

In an effort to shut down the spammers I have disabled the "Allow members to send messages to the entire group" feature of some of the worst hit groups. If you feel that you really need to have the feature enabled can I suggested you have "Only Invited Members" or at the very least "Approve all new members".

The Groups seem to be a targeted strategy of the spammers.

Permalink Reply by Umar Jamshaid on October 29, 2013 at 10:19am

Thanks Danny for clearing that up, even my comment was a bit of a reflex action so, i apologize if it were offensive.

can you have a look at my post please. here is the link:

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/right-way-to-report-spam-...

regards!

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on October 29, 2013 at 10:49am

Hi Umar,

I totally understand.

The Link you were trying to post would, at first glance, lead you to a porn website how I would know that brazzers and the phrase mommygot..... is beyond me. But that is why that particular one got flagged.

In future a link to a users profile would be more use as we can usually see their history there and then suspend them on that page.

Hopefully the measures that David has just put in place will prevent all except the extremely persistent spammers from Joining Grasshopper.

For a few weeks I expect a couple to come to light that had already joined before the GH Ning Code protocol.

So please continue to report any spammers

Permalink Reply by Umar Jamshaid on October 30, 2013 at 2:21pm

sure!

thanks man!

Permalink Reply by Fred Becquelin on October 30, 2013 at 4:42pm

I really don't understand why someone would have the grasshopper site send me 9 emails in 24h with subject such as "aaajjjjjjjjdu" or "oooooooooaaaahfj"...

What is the hidden goal of this?

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on October 30, 2013 at 4:48pm

Out of interest was it from the Open Sea Group?

Permalink Reply by Fred Becquelin on October 31, 2013 at 3:11pm

Yes as a matter of fact all of them were...

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on November 1, 2013 at 11:13am

I noticed that open sea had an email group option enabled. It wasn't the only one but this is a feature that attracts spammers like an orangina can in august attracts wasps.

I disabled the feature on the few worst affected groups but they now all seem to be active again since the new measures have been put in place.

Incidently we are still getting sleepers who are revisiting and posting spam so you will still probably get a few until we weed them all out. I know what to look for now so it wont take too long to rid ourselves of their incessent vexations