[thelist] tracking spammers

Meshack meshack at hrts.org
Mon Jul 11 12:02:10 CDT 2011


Thanks for the updates. I may retake a look at my old contact form.

-Meshack

-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Bob Meetin
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2011 5:57 AM
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: Re: [thelist] tracking spammers

On 07/09/2011 11:58 AM, Simon MacDonald wrote:
> Hi Bob,
>
> Thats good feedback re the URL - I've had some minor spamming - I'll 
> try the url route too Regards
>
> Simon
Just a little more regarding the hidden fields, etc.

IP: 178.73.17.204 (IP changes often)
Name: Diubbituams
Email: (the email changes regularly)
Username: Diubbituams (seems random but matches name)
Password: (thus far, always 10 random characters) Joomla Option:
com_ajaxregistration
Admin_only: (visible field, not getting filled in)
URL: http://www.whatever.pl
Website: http://www.whatever.pl
Link: http://www.whatever.pl
Whatever: (another hidden field, just wanted to see if the bot is addressing
specific field names or all - this is 'not' getting filled in; there are
probably one or two others we could add to the list) Time 1: 01:44:05
(initial load of form) Time 2: 01:44:07 (form processed; the first few times
I was seeing 10-14 seconds, now commonly 2 seconds)

Summary: The always 10 randomly generated password string as well as speed
of passing captcha makes me think it's bot-oid as opposed to humanoid, but
the fact that it is clever enough to get through drag/drop captcha makes me
think otherwise. I can switch to recaptcha and see what happens. Do we care?

Adding a probably changing URL to a deny list certainly means that you are
potentially blocking a future real member, but doing some basic math with
percentages would suggest that the probability of winning a lottery is
higher, IMHO.

-Bob
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