Icehousegames.org Being Hammered With Spambots

[David Artman]

I'm not sure who here still admins the icehousegames.org wiki, but it's getting hammered daily by spambots. It's software probably needs updating, and it probably also needs the reCaptcha plugin updated (or installed!).

It looks like someone is trying to stay ahead of it and get it all deleted, but they can't delete the actual pages I suspect, nor can they update the software so that it won't be such a problem.

Thanks!

David

[Russ Williams]

Unfortunately this has been the case for months. See the older thread:

http://looneylabs.ning.com/forum/topics/wiki-page-has-been-hacked-e...

Apparently the only admin who can really address it effectively is Brian Campbell, who seems to be unreachable lately.

[Jeff Wolfe]

The front page of icehousegames.org gives an email address for him (webmaster-at-continuation.org), has anyone tried that?  It looks like the domain name was renewed last week, so he hasn't given up on it entirely.  I found two other email addresses if anyone wants to try them.  He hasn't logged on to BGG since late March.

[Lucy A Bracegirdle]

It has the recaptcha plugin. I was greeted by it yesterday when i went to link my fanclub page to my wiki page. It didn't seem to stop all those spammers i was removing tho.

[David Artman]

I think the reCaptcha has to be updated, though. It is routinely "beaten" by spammers, and is routinely updated to fight back.

On my own sites, I run several anti-bot plugins (Are You Human on random, AntiBot Clock, and reCaptcha). The idea is that a given bot might beat one, or even two, but all three, with each of them "resetting" when it fails one? I'm not worried... ;)

[Greg Lattanzio]

The plugin is only activated on the wiki if you are posting a link to an external page, not if you're only spamming with text, which is the problem in this case.

[Scott Alan Sulzer]

What's most bothersome about the recaptcha plugin is that it goes off every time I flag spam with the admin and delete flags.  Makes it much more bothersome to  flag it.  Mind you, I'll still flag the stuff when I have time, but it seems as there should be a way to set up a spam flag or something that will allow us to flag without having to go through the recatchpa every time.

[David Artman]

Well, it looks like the spambots will eventually stop... because they are going to max out the site storage any day now! ;)

[David Artman]

Momentous day in the wiki's history! First DESTRUCTIVE spam post that I've ever seen, blowing out the Main Page content.

I'm rolling that back... but I'm also going to give up trying to manage this change. Had I a financial stake in pyramids, I would be considering this a major challenge to address, particularly if new buyers are being directed to the wiki (in rule books or box inserts, for example?).

David

[Matthew Rogers]

I've actually seen spam loaded onto the Main Page before. Thanks for fixing that one.

[Russ Williams]

It's really an awful problem. Besides being a serious nuisance for existing users of the wiki, it also creates a terrible impression for new people curious about the pyramids, making it look like the pyramid community is dead.

Has anyone had contact with Brian the wiki admin about this?

AFAIK he hasn't responded to any of multiple attempts by multiple people to reach him about this problem. :(

We really need to change the wiki settings so people can't trivially easily create accounts and immediate start editing. I.e. require an email exchange between the account requester and an admin (with the requester writing some message about their interest in icehouse pyramids) or a decent captcha system that would weed out people who don't know anything about the pyramids.

And to clean up all the tons of existing spam and delete the spam accounts and delete pages created by spammers. I suspect several us would be happy to receive the admin rights to do that. (I would.) But what is the plan if Brian never responds?

[David Artman]

I discovered a pretty tricksie way to find all the spam pages using Orphaned pages:

http://icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Lonelypages&a...

Someone with delete permissions could knock that out in, oh, an hour or two. Doesn't solve the core problem, though, of course....

[Ryan Hackel]

There can be no long-term solution without Brian Campbell.