Board back open after spamming to death

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Iain
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Board back open after spamming to death

Post by Iain »

Well that was quite a lot of spam..... Typically, it happened while I was down Internet access for a week.

All users and spam message should be deleted now. I might have deleted some new non spam users that joined since July but that's unlikely.

Registration of new users is still disabled. I'll have to change some things before enabling that again.

I haven't checked private messages, somebody mentioned spam was sent to user's mailboxes on the forum as well, so I'll look into that.
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Iain
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Re: Board back open after spamming to death

Post by Iain »

The database size had massively increased as well, so I had to purge all sessions, which means everybody will have to log back in again. There was also thousands and thousands of spam Q&A attempts that I had to delete too. Such scumbags...
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andy vaisey
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Re: Board back open after spamming to death

Post by andy vaisey »

Thanks for your work on this; it may have been a major pain for you but I do appreciate it!

I may not post that often, but I check almost daily and rely on the site for reading old issues of ZZAP! as well as the diary articles.
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Iain
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Re: Board back open after spamming to death

Post by Iain »

It would have been quicker if PHPBB or my server worked as it should have, but I guess it's a lesson for me to check the forum every day myself even if on holidays to stop anything before it goes too mad!
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Lloyd Mangram
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Re: Board back open after spamming to death

Post by Lloyd Mangram »

Thx Iain for keeping things alive. :)
Once again I emerge from beneath a massive pile of paper which makes my desk groan to bring you the world’s most amazing posts.
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Iain
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Re: Board back open after spamming to death

Post by Iain »

No worries. Too many retro sites disappearing for me to let this one go with them! :)
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Iain
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Re: Board back open after spamming to death

Post by Iain »

Seems the spammers haven't given up yet, still trying to log in, over and over. There are almost a million temp sessions in the sessions table, so they are using some amount of resources etc.

Time to start banning IPs, the main one 5.188.84.12 should help a lot, seems they have been spamming 1000's of forums and still at it. :(
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Iain
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Re: Board back open after spamming to death

Post by Iain »

Sorry, I had to delete all sessions from the board again. The spambots had filled it up by around a GB!!

That means everybody probably has to log in again.

I'll try blocking more IPs now so I don't have to keep on doing this.

The board has never been this affected by spambots on this level before. :(
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Lloyd Mangram
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Re: Board back open after spamming to death

Post by Lloyd Mangram »

Sorry to hear this Iain! :(
Thx for your all your efforts.
Once again I emerge from beneath a massive pile of paper which makes my desk groan to bring you the world’s most amazing posts.
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