Intruders-Alert

Why are spam accounts from Romania being approved ?

98VS1400 wrote:Are the accounts automatically approved? If so that will be the reason. I think that any member which has a link to an internet address for prescription drugs or handbags or sunglasses should be a sure bet for deletion! Especially if they hail from Romania!

On a side note, I've added several members to the Facebook account who are from other countries. It is possible at some point one or more of them may join, but I've yet to see a single one do so. We've had several Spam accounts be created, which makes me wonder why? Was there a time they did the same thing on IA? What is it about this forum that seems to invite them?

IA blocks known bad IP addresses using black lists. I do as well.

MadCow wrote:Why are spam accounts from Romania being approved ?

They aren't being approved, they are getting past the anti spam bot counter measures. Which indicates either they have pretty good image recognition software or there are actual people figuring out the puzzles.

I haven't seen a way to block entire IP subnets yet and I'll have to look into the black list thing, that would be a better additional defense.

So far, we haven't been getting flooded with spam bots. They seem to show up a couple at a time and most of the time they don't seem to be doing anything. We did have the one incident in which the bot did manage to put up several posts, but was swiftly dealt with.

As you know, there's literally hundreds of setting involved with the entire board, forums, users, mail, pms, permissions and it's a little complicated to get it all figured out, especially if you haven't done it in almost 20 years. I have spent several hours on the phpBB forums to get some of this stuff figured out. Just yesterday I was there trying to figure out why the mass pm thing wasn't doing what I thought it was supposed to do. Today, I will be back there again to see about the blocking of IP subnets.

I may decide to implement your idea of having newly registered users set to admin approval instead of the email method. You guys need to remember, though I'm not exactly new at this, I am kind of starting all over with a learning curve here. I'm trying to keep myself sane by not making huge changes to the board because it is a lot like uncorking your vs1400, once you do it, there's a lot of variables you have to wade through to get it right. For that reason, I do little tweaks here and there and am trying to get them ironed out one at a time rather than all at once.

I'm working on it fellas.

Yo-

YoDude9999 wrote:

MadCow wrote:Why are spam accounts from Romania being approved ?

I'm working on it fellas.

Yo-

It's good that you have an expert level PHPBB/server admin right here...holla.

Mike, thanks for that. I try not to pester you too much with what may seem like silly assed questions.

But, here's one for you....

I still haven't figured out where the file is that contains the html tags for the header and title sections for the site. I went completely through that index.php file and found no clue in that files that deals with that information. My conclusion so far, is that the index.htm file I'm looking for is somewhere at a level I can't get to, or it's possible it just doesn't exist at all and maybe that's what's making me crazy with the whole thing.

So, I have an idea that MAY work but I thought I'd run it past you first to get your opinion.
In the folder that has the .htaccess file and also the index.php file, what would happen if I put an index.htm file in there that has the information in it I want? I'm thinking if I do that, it's possible it'll crash the site, though not harm it in any way, but stop it from working.

From the server standpoint I'd tend to think, ok user clicked on the link to the site, server sees index.htm and runs it (by default, I would guess) and then it gets to the end and then nothing else left to do. Or, if it doesn't run the script by default, then it won't make any difference at all. Or maybe it'll run the file and when it gets to the end, it'll see the index.php script and start that one.

I suppose I could just try it see what happens, but I don't like trial and error methods when dealing with the site. Thoughts?

Yo-

YoDude9999 wrote:Mike, thanks for that. I try not to pester you too much with what may seem like silly assed questions.

But, here's one for you....

I still haven't figured out where the file is that contains the html tags for the header and title sections for the site. I went completely through that index.php file and found no clue in that files that deals with that information. My conclusion so far, is that the index.htm file I'm looking for is somewhere at a level I can't get to, or it's possible it just doesn't exist at all and maybe that's what's making me crazy with the whole thing.

So, I have an idea that MAY work but I thought I'd run it past you first to get your opinion.
In the folder that has the .htaccess file and also the index.php file, what would happen if I put an index.htm file in there that has the information in it I want? I'm thinking if I do that, it's possible it'll crash the site, though not harm it in any way, but stop it from working.

From the server standpoint I'd tend to think, ok user clicked on the link to the site, server sees index.htm and runs it (by default, I would guess) and then it gets to the end and then nothing else left to do. Or, if it doesn't run the script by default, then it won't make any difference at all. Or maybe it'll run the file and when it gets to the end, it'll see the index.php script and start that one.

I suppose I could just try it see what happens, but I don't like trial and error methods when dealing with the site. Thoughts?

Yo-

I think your good to go as it is..your current index.php contains this which I think is sufficient.

</head>

<body id="phpbb" class="section-index ltr">

<div id="wrap">
<a id="top" name="top" accesskey="t"></a>
<div id="page-header">
<div class="headerbar">
<div class="inner"><span class="corners-top"><span></span></span>

<div id="site-description">
<a href="./index.php" title="Board index" id="logo"></a>
<h1>Intruders-Alert</h1>
<p>A Forum dedicated to the Owners of the Suzuki Intruder line of motorcycles</p>
<p class="skiplink"><a href="#start_here">Skip to content</a></p>
</div>


<div id="search-box">
<form action="./search.php" method="get" id="search">
<fieldset>
<input name="keywords" id="keywords" type="text" maxlength="128" title="Search for keywords" class="inputbox search" value="Search…" onclick="if(this.value=='Search…')this.value='';" onblur="if(this.value=='')this.value='Search…';" />
<input class="button2" value="Search" type="submit" /><br />
<a href="./search.php" title="View the advanced search options">Advanced search</a>
</fieldset>
</form>
</div>


<span class="corners-bottom"><span></span></span></div>
</div>
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DO NOT replace the index.php

Yes, it does, but that's just related to the site itself and what you see when you are actually on the site itself.

What I'm speaking of, is what you see when you do a google search and you get the result that looks like this:



I want to change where it says, "index page" to something else.

Oh and don't worry. I had no intention of replacing the index.php file, that would kill the site and I understand that. I was just going to add a file to the folder that was named index.htm

Maybe this makes more sense now?

Yo-

So, I tried putting an index.htm file in the root folder along with the index.php file. Turned out as I expected. Prevents the board from being displayed. I guess I'll have to see if I've missed something I can edit over on the server.

Yo-

Also make sure you are using the DNSBL service in your security settings...

ACP, Security settings, Check IP against DNS Blackhole List --> Check YES
(Checks the IP against known spammers)
+

ACP, Security settings, Check MX record is valid --> Check YES
Checks to make sure the mail record is valid during user registration

I don't remember if they are YES by default.

I will check that right away!

Yo-

Both already, "Yes"

Dude wrote:Both already, "Yes"

Good, as it should be. You'd be surprised how much it cuts down on spam accounts.

I'm actually somewhat surprised we've had as few as we have. At least the ones that do get through are easily manageable and there's only a few showing up.

Yo-

I am your friendly spammer and was wondering if I could interest you in a spam sammie?