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200 + NEW MEMBERS IN 24 HOURS

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4K views 54 replies 38 participants last post by  Fejus 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
As some one who true to great all new members I notice 20- 40 new members a day but the last few days there has been a big increase in new members as many as one new member every 30 seconds and perhaps 200 plus members since midnight. This makes me feel like someone has developed some kind of soft ware that keeps adding new members. I'm just puzzled why someone would want to do this? I don't see how this hurts anyone but it just seems strange. Anyone have any ideas why someone would want to do this ?
 
#7 ·
Sounds like someone is creating bots that will either post marketing or advertisements or will rip content from the site and create robot sites that will come up in google searches and steal traffic for ad-hits..
 
#8 ·
I don't know but they are coming about ever 2-4 minutes and they have no location or nothing about themselves. Maybe Martin or someone smart on computers can see if they originate from a common source.
Sounds fishy to me! I have not got a clue because they are not advertising stuff like the scammers do!!
............Good find, Jim
 
#11 ·
The integrity of the membership count went out the window a long time ago Jim.
Pages 17-20 of the most recent Jocks is a pharmacy full of "Woodworkers" with names like "Flexeril CVS Price Online. Buy Cheap Flexeril at CVS Pharmacy"...
Look at some of the most recent names, like "whimtanondows" or "phensubfstinwe"!
It is a free site. Unfortunately, that means some people feel free to corrupt it… :-(
 
#12 ·
What you're seeing are called "registration bots".

It's all automated. Tools like xrumer are built, and sold, and contain the ability to exploit software with known vulnerabilities. Anyone can buy it and after setting it up it's more or less fire and forget. It goes to every forum in its list and tries to spam it to the best of its ability. Just due to brute force it is successful and worth it for the spammers. That's why they never stop. They barely have to lift a finger for it to work.

So many reasons and scripts behind the "auto register" bots, it's hard to narrow down the specific reasons why LJs is loaded onto these lists.

But here ya have it.

Below is a typical question from a spammer on a supporting "bot" web site.
It is very telling as to some reasons thousands of spammers use these Bots:

"i'm just in the process of making a auto forum register bot , looking for poeple to help me code it up, i'm just starting on it now, if any one whould like to help in the coding and testing let me no here

the bot will be based around a php/curl script that will run on a existing website tricking unsupecting users to to fill in a capthca string, then store the resulting registered account in either a dtatabase or txt file for latter use in a auto forum poster (seperate project)

the plan is to:

1: a user comes onto a site and hits a enter page, could be a porn site or other site that has a small stream of traffic

2: we say enter the capthca image string in order to countiune on to view whatever it is they looking for

the script behind the scenes

1: the script opns a curl seesion and extracts a capthca image for the forum sign up page and passes to the index page the surfer has enter

2: when the user inputs the capthca string to view porn etc, the script sends them into the next page, but also sends the details to a forum with the capthca string to sign up for a new account

3: the new register account for a forum is recorded in a database or txt file for latter use

other things that might be needed

we need to have a big list of forums and also a bunch of emails to use and most forums only allow one email per account, we will also have to maunly log into these email accounts in the future to click any verify links to activate the account(s)

maybe it might be a good idea to use this concept to fisrt register lot of emails extracting the capthca string from email sign up pages to get users to create emails for use, or even randomize it so sometimes users loking on our porn site enter page are enter capthca from email sign up pages then forum sign up pages

anyone got any feedback or willing to help let us no about it"
 
#15 ·
Really bad recently. It's been a long time since I signed up so I don't remember the process but I did have to wait awhile because the site wasn't accepting new guests.

Can our web guru set up one of those human readable / graphic pass-codes that has to be entered to procede to the registration page? I'm sure you have all seen these things.

We need some help here.
 
#16 ·
Jim: I think we are about to be hit with a lot of spam. Some of the names are Viagra-online and other line ones.

Maybe we can get all of these deleted before that kicks in.
 
#22 · (Edited by Moderator)
For a long time I have taught basic computer classes at the senior center to people who have never touched a computer before. They come in with a lot of irrational fears and I spend a lot of time trying to reassure them that by following a few simple rules and precautions that they can be relatively safe.

That job is getting harder and harder, because the "simple" precautions are not so simple anymore, and I have long since given up trying to stay up to date on these things. I now have to give several disclaimers and have recently been trying to find a forensic computer detective who will a.) help me come up with a more up to date list of precautions, and b) give a talk to the members of the center once a year or every 6 months. People who has never used a computer before are going to a very vulnerable population, especially the elderly, and I'm feeling like I might be throwing some of these people to the wolves.

Good luck Jim, Debbie, and Martin. Sorry you even have to spend time on this. Me too.
 
#23 ·
Hey guys. I'm one of the new people, as of yesterday, that recently registered. I'm looking forward to joining in discussions on this site and learning a lot of good stuff here.

I've done a bit of woodworking in the past, and am really looking forward to getting back into this great hobby. My wife and I recently bought a home that came with a really nice, large work shop, so I'm really excited about putting together my new shop to work in.
 
#24 ·
Regarding the comment here about adding a captcha to the registration page. This is a great idea and would greatly help in fighting off the automated scripts that people use to create spam accounts. The current registration process for this site would be super-easy to automate with a malicious script by spammers. A captcha would go a long way to help secure and prevent against this.
 
#25 ·
I think something may have to be done to add a capchta(?) to the registation process. One of those things where you have to type in what a picture says or a warped nonsense word.

I hate marketers that do this kind of thing. Puts all marketers in a bad light. :(
 
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