ANNOUNCEMENT: Guests no longer able to Post

[Captain Garak]

I would imagine that many of you have seen some of the "garbage" posts that have been made to the Culdcept Forum in recent weeks. An example of such a post appears below:



Lately, the site has been getting hit once per night with such a "garbage" post, which I have been eliminating on a daily basis as soon as I've seen it.

In checking the Proboards support forum, it appears as though posts like these are coming from some spambot operating out of China. For more information about this situation, please feel free to read the information posted in the following thread:

support.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=support&action=display&n=1&thread=1135404803&page=1

I was surprised to read when the word "virus" was used in connection with these postings. If the potential for harm exists if these postings are allowed to continue, that is a threat that must be eliminated.

Unfortunately, it appears as though the only way to fix this problem in the Proboards system is to disable the ability for Guests to post, which is an administrative change that I have executed for this Forum, effective today. This means that, in order to post, everyone must log in to their account. That, in turn, means that every poster needs to have a Membership account in order to post.

So, if you want to post, you must have an account. If you don't have an account, please register for one, and I will do my best to make certain that your E-mail confirmation message is sent out to you promptly.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but until the Proboards forum system can implement code that stops the Chinese spambot invasion, it appears as though there is little else that can be done to eliminate this potentially virus-ridden problem.

[lando griffith]

thank you. ;D

[Captain Garak]

Well, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here, but it would appear as though the change I made yesterday prevented the Chinese spambot from posting to the site last night / this morning. I haven't found any new posts looking like the one displayed above since making that post yesterday.

In testing this change, I have also discovered that it limits people far more than just not allowing Guests to post. It requires that Guests obtain a Membership and sign in, in order to be able to view any content at all.

Oh, well -- I guess that's the way it goes, until Proboards implements code to filter this stuff out without having to restrict the entire board.

[lando griffith]

welcome back ggdfs... missed you

[BrianBethany]

I don't think that is a problem, it works fine. Thanks.

[ckazz]

fyi - actually as a guest/un-registered I couldn't even read

[wraith]

Yeah, guests can't even read the forums. Did you realize that?

I understand your reasons for closing up anonymous posting. But is there a reason you turned off anonymous *reading*?

Seems like you could get a lot more interest in Culdcept and this forum if you let people browse first.

[Captain Garak]

Yes, Wraith - I realize that guests can neither post nor read until they register. Unfortunately, the ProBoards system does not provide a simple system for allowing "read-only" access for Guests, or that would be something that I certainly would consider.

The only other way to limit the ability to make the type of posts that the Forum was being bombarded with a year ago (see the first post above, which I "repaired" this morning to provide links to the appropriate image files) would be to enter intricate JavaScript code into the board's headers and footers. In addition to being a somewhat complicated "fix", it is also not tremendously secure because it is based upon eliminating posts that contain specific characters. So, the saavy spammer would simply have to eliminate those characters from their posts, and they would be able to circumvent that code.

Frankly, it was a pain to have to cycle through many, many posts day after day after day, to find and delete those spam posts. Not only was it a drag for me, but it was also a "danger" to any Forum members, since some of the links in those spam posts could deliver folks to pages containing viruses. Frankly, I find that the act of registering - which is a small thing to require, actually - is worth keeping that kind of junk off of these boards.

In any event, I'm glad that you registered, and now that you have access, I hope that you return on a regular basis!

[virtualsmith]

Maybe the garbage posts are automated "spam" posts. If so, you could reenable guest read/writes if proboard has the ability to add a authentication string or whatever it is called. On some boards, when you post, it has a small image with letters/numbers that you have to replicate in a field next to the "Post Reply" button and the message is only posted if this is authenicated. This would weed out the automated posts...

Just a thought.