We get some strange signups that we're not sure what they are. They seem to be bots as the occupations and hobbies the same, even the zip codes are usually similar (normally something like 90210) but they don't have links to porn/drug sites. The links are usually to msn.com or yahoo. Does anyone know the point of them joining if all they do is sit there and link to msn? We're going to sweep through them and delete them, but we're bemused as to what their purpose seems to be.

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Spambots "join" forums in order to have the link to some website made public. They are sent by computer programs of evil, annoying people.

Spambots almost always have Albanian as the language, and they are never activated. They almost always list a country and hobbies in their profile. Some have fake or odd email addresses, but some use common email accounts such as gmail or yahoo.

So, go through your memberlist and delete all those with Albanian as the language and that are not activated.

Test run bots? That would explain it. Anyway, we'll be banning them all. Thanks for the comments

Hi,

I have also that problem, and I don’t understand why they don’t put a site to there profile . I have seen some get activated. Maybe there just people who want to register for fun or have bad intensions. I must say that I put wildcard bans to there address *@… and now I have les of those users. Isn’t it possible that forumup puts a topic where we can report those users so they be banned from all forumup? A bit of helping each other because I have seen that those users register not only at one forum but if I look at support forum at my language they register there and on my forum at the same time. So I think we all have problems with the same users or bots like there called.

Greetings, Danny

Some of those signups are done with computer bot programs. Those are never activated. The ones that are activated would be annoying humans doing it by hand, in the ususal way people register.

Quote:

Isn’t it possible that forumup puts a topic where we can report those users so they be banned from all forumup?

We have a thread on that here on .com, but really, banning by usename for all of them is pointless, since some bot programs use a random name generator. If one name won't "take", then they just generate a different one. Banning some email addresses is good. I made a list below.

What is best is to put in the "disallowed names" certain words or word parts that tend to be used in many of the spambot registrations.

Those would include the following, using the "wildcard" stars before and after the word or word part:

*admin*
*adol*
*advert*
*auto*
*babe*
*barga*
*bigbo*
*bigti*
*breast*
*bride*
*buy*
*cam*
*cash*
*casino*
*cig*
*cheap*
*core*
*cock*
*celeb*
*cial*
*credit*
*dating*
*dick*
*doctor*
*drug*
*dvd*
*ence*
*free*
*fuc*
*hack*
*health*
*insurance*
*invest*
*jote*
*lamer*
*loan*
*lover*
*medic*
*online*
*order*
*penis*
*pharm*
*phen*
*pill*
*porn*
*profit*
*rape*
*roid*
*rumer*
*service*
*sex*
*slot*
*slut*
*spam*
*tard*
*tram*
*teen*
*tit*
*nurs*
*prosti*
*paxi*
*viag*
*wage*
*wank*
*xanax*
*XXX*
*zoloft*

Some emails to ban, by extention, putting the star in front:

*@cashette.com
*@gawab.com
*@best-finance.biz
*@mail.ru (unless you have a Russian forum with members from Russia)
*@list.ru
*@phreaker.net
*@yandex.ru
*@hotcreampie.info
*@ukr.net
*@hotpop.com
*@hotbox.com
*@mymail-in.net
*@marlboro-ez-cigarettes.com
*@seekeng.org
*@pillshoprx.com
*@goquickpay.info
*@rambler.ru
*@ulmail.net
*@10gloria.info
*@goto.pl
*@onet.eu
*@maniso.com
*@blupottle.com
*@bluebottle.com
*@inbox.lv
*@web.de (unless you have forum with a lot of members from Germany)
*@0cynthia.info
*@cheepmedorg.info
*@accessmp3.info
*@o2.pl
*@xtopsearch.info
*@fromru.com
*@1foru.com
*@f1ua.com
*@mail333.com
*@supertopten.info
*@bk.ru
*@0ann.info
*@bigmir.net
*@bonbon.net
*@emailcom.com
*@runbox.com
*@4warding.net
*@orru.com
*@mygoldenrain.org
*@superfastsearch.org
*@tlen.pl
*@inet.ua
*@bestquicksearch.org

Hey,

Thanks for all your work I will make use of your list because I don’t see anything on it that I already have allowed. And would allow.

Greetings, Danny

You're welcome. Everyone should use what I posted. I have deleted over 10,000 spambots over the past year on the various support forums, so I am sure familiar by now with the common names and email addresses used!

My lists have reduced the number of spambot signups. However, new email addresses wind up being used after a while. So the job is never done.

Do note that almost all the spambots have Albanian as the user name. Most all do give a link to some website, and most ususally fill in a country in their profile. Of course, that is not the real country of the spambot, since they are not alive!

Fionntulach, if you suspect that ForumUp somehow provide spammers with emails from the forums, and the forum owners, then I can assure you that this is not the case.

But there are numerous ways for spammers to get hold of email ads.

For example, keep in mind that an activation email is sent every time a spambot registers on your forum. Most of those activation emails end up in "empty space", as the spambots use "false" adresses. But a few will end up in the mailboxes of spamming companies, who make use of them. There is no good protection against that, I'm afraid.

To use the blocking list provided by Margaret will pobably get rid of some of them, but only if the spammer emails are blocked before the first activation email is sent from the forum. And the list is far from complete, for obvious reasons...

There are still the old fashioned "reading-email-adresses" bots around. They can at least be fought off, to a large extent, by the use of spampoison. I have used it to -- what seems like -- good effect on my forum, from the start:

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FoxLeonard