Re: [Mwiki] Spam Attack in progress!

2012-11-17 Thread TJ Frazier

On 11/17/2012 08:28, Regina Henschel wrote:

Hi,

TJ Frazier schrieb:

Since 05:00 (UTC+5) this morning, I have blocked over 150 spammers; the
deleted-pages count is higher. Normal would be about half a dozen. And
still they come.

In the short run, I can probably handle it, though help from any
committer sysops would be useful.

In the long run, some site-maintainer work is needed. The additional
powers available in later Mwiki versions might be enough to control this
sort of thing. Clayton has advised that upgrading is a non-trivial
problem, due to a possible encoding foul-up. Whatever we do, we need to
do it sometime soon.


Is it possible for you, to disable any new registrations? Then you
should do it. We can then discuss long run solutions.

Kind regards
Regina


Hi, Regina,

Thanks for the idea, but most of the spammers are already registered 
(not brand-new). A site maintainer (not me) could disable new 
registrations easily, but that would not be much help.


We need to know how these spammers are registering (their email 
addresses) and how they are accessing the wiki (their IP addresses). The 
information is in the MySQL database, but it is only accessible from 
root-level MySQL commands; Wp is paranoid about user secrecy.


For instance, are they using those open reply email addresses, where 
the email waits to be picked up by anybody? Clayton had a code snippet 
to block their use, but it may not have survived.


I have promoted one dedicated and careful user to sysop; between us, we 
are keeping up with the flood. But they are still coming.


/tj/




Re: [Mwiki] Spam Attack in progress!

2012-11-17 Thread Max Merbald

Hi,

disabling new registrations is one thing which might, however, stop 
sensible people from participating. I think it must be very frustrating 
when you're trying to register somewhere in order to constructively 
contribute to a project and you can't.


Won't it be possible to ban some of the more aggressive spammers instead?

Max


Am 17.11.2012 21:49, schrieb TJ Frazier:

On 11/17/2012 08:28, Regina Henschel wrote:

Hi,

TJ Frazier schrieb:

Since 05:00 (UTC+5) this morning, I have blocked over 150 spammers; the
deleted-pages count is higher. Normal would be about half a dozen. And
still they come.

In the short run, I can probably handle it, though help from any
committer sysops would be useful.

In the long run, some site-maintainer work is needed. The additional
powers available in later Mwiki versions might be enough to control 
this

sort of thing. Clayton has advised that upgrading is a non-trivial
problem, due to a possible encoding foul-up. Whatever we do, we need to
do it sometime soon.


Is it possible for you, to disable any new registrations? Then you
should do it. We can then discuss long run solutions.

Kind regards
Regina


Hi, Regina,

Thanks for the idea, but most of the spammers are already registered 
(not brand-new). A site maintainer (not me) could disable new 
registrations easily, but that would not be much help.


We need to know how these spammers are registering (their email 
addresses) and how they are accessing the wiki (their IP addresses). 
The information is in the MySQL database, but it is only accessible 
from root-level MySQL commands; Wp is paranoid about user secrecy.


For instance, are they using those open reply email addresses, where 
the email waits to be picked up by anybody? Clayton had a code snippet 
to block their use, but it may not have survived.


I have promoted one dedicated and careful user to sysop; between us, 
we are keeping up with the flood. But they are still coming.


/tj/