BOTS BOTS BOTS BOTS BOTS BOTS BOTS BOTS BOTS BOTS BOTS BOTS

[Mr. Tines]

We have had about a tenfold increase in daily bottage rates over the last week. (50-odd in the last 24 hours).

This is no longer a sustainable position for the current mechanisms.

[BrikHaus]

We have had about a tenfold increase in daily bottage rates over the last week. (50-odd in the last 24 hours).
This is no longer a sustainable position for the current mechanisms.

Time to bring out the heavy artillery

[NAveryW]

These are not actually bots at all, but giant humanoid cybernetic organisms wi-...

I'm going to stop there.

[BEsERk EVA01]

Yeah, I love Evangelion a lot too, but I just can't stop myself spamming once in a while. I'm just really excited about the upcoming events like Rebuild of Evangelion etc. I hate myself when I spam and somebody has to humiliate me when they're replying. WAAAHH! Is there any way for me to stop spamming, I try but every comment I post has got some spam in it! Stupid me. Frikken...see I'm doing it again! Posting unnecessary comments! Now I hate myself even more. :oops: :cry: :cry:

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Putting aside BE01's misunderstanding of the thread, what is the current situation with regard to the bot problem?

[Logan Payne]

Putting aside BE01's misunderstanding of the thread, what is the current situation with regard to the bot problem?

As a person who signed up for an account this morn...the approval process seems to halt bots...it'd be nice in the future to smooth it out for peeps.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Could you give us a brief rundown on what that entailed and how much hassle/hindrance it was? Would you have preferred some sort of Evangelion themed captcha system. E.g. A picture with "Who is this character?", etc.

[Logan Payne]

Could you give us a brief rundown on what that entailed and how much hassle/hindrance it was? Would you have preferred some sort of Evangelion themed captcha system. E.g. A picture with "Who is this character?", etc.

That system would be awesome but I found it to be standard fare. I just was taken aback by the fact I was supposed to wait for approval. Plus I only read the thread that said stand out in your profile when you sign up after I hit submit(Sorta my fault). I was wondering if my sig "The Cake is A Lie" proves I'm not a bot enough. Perhaps point to that thread before one gets to the sign up sheet? I sent it in this morning and got it back by the end of the day when I checked again so it was a fast response.

[Mr. Tines]

Putting aside BE01's misunderstanding of the thread, what is the current situation with regard to the bot problem?

At the moment, there's being about 1 clearly dubious registration per day, and since the last move 3 obvious repeat offenders as in enough repetition to let the ban list handle screening.

[Mr. Tines]

about 1 clearly dubious registration per day

I spoke too soon. 4 out of six new sign-ups this morning, including a 3rd time offender. The custom captcha cannot come too soon.

[Ornette]

What needs to be done to implement the captcha? Or at least the anti-bot stuff that was on EMF before? Does Mr. Tines need shell access?

[Mr. Tines]

OMF has the custom captcha stuff.

My main limitation is having energy after work these days.

[Mr. Tines]

I have finally gotten over my inertia enough to copy in the patch I'd installed on EMF; fortunately the phpBB minor version changes don't seem to have made any changes at the point where I intercept registration.

The patch may need some enhancements as not all the recent bad-boys would have been caught.

Edit -- and we have not completely broken registration as Matt_Colly proves.

[Matt_Colly]

Edit -- and we have not completely broken registration as Matt_Colly proves.

whatever do you mean? haha, long story but i was searching my sn and came across this post and realized i never got a confirmation email so i had just assumed that i was not allowed on to forum...but when i entered in my infor on the login page i was allowed on. Is this alright? sorry, but i am very confused.

[Mr. Tines]

[whatever do you mean?

That you were able to register at all -- the fact that the mail server seems intermittently flaky is a different issue (depending how I do activation, it may not even show up that there's been a problem).

[Ornette]

This seems to only happen during registration (or has anyone else experienced not getting an email notification, such as when a subscribed thread gets posted to or you get a PM?). The mail server was up and delivering email on the 31st.

And it seems the email was sent (don't know if this was a confirmation)
[code:1]Oct 31 19:32:52 castro postfix/smtpd[19714]: connect from adonis.dreamhost.com[208.113.190.11]
Oct 31 19:32:53 castro postfix/smtpd[19714]: 614239D42EC: client=adonis.dreamhost.com[208.113.190.11], sasl_method=LOGIN, sasl_username=XXXX
Oct 31 19:32:53 castro postfix/cleanup[20331]: 614239D42EC: hold: header Received: from castro.cometway.com (adonis.dreamhost.com [208.113.190.11])??by castro.cometway.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 614239D42EC??for <XXXX>; Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:32:53 -0400 (EDT) from adonis.dreamhost.com[208.113.190.11]; from=<theevamonkey> to=<XXXX> proto=ESMTP helo=<castro>
Oct 31 19:32:53 castro postfix/smtpd[19714]: disconnect from adonis.dreamhost.com[208.113.190.11
Oct 31 19:33:02 castro postfix/smtp[20390]: DB4009D4412: to=<XXXX>, relay=smtp2.etown.edu[208.39.178.60]:25, delay=9.3, delays=8.8/0.02/0.32/0.18, dsn=2.6.0, status=sent (250 2.6.0 Queued mail for delivery)][/code:1]

Maybe the contents of the email are getting filtered by a spam filter? (Note, it seems email addresses are getting it's hostnames removed, but in the logs they are FQNs)

[Matt_Colly]

hmm, for the longest time i figured i wasn't eva-geek enough, thus i didnt receive an acceptance (glad that isnt the case). But my college has been strange with accepting "unknown" email sources since our network has been spiriling down the toilet almost daily. I know a guy in one of my classes who mentioned he registered too and has not yet heard back...