AutoHotkey Community

I regularly see spam appearing on the forum from the first post of new users! As the posts of all new users are supposed to be moderated, how is this possible? Is there some loophole in the forum software that allows this to happen?

TAC109 wrote: ↑

27 Feb 2021, 03:43

As the posts of all new users are supposed to be moderated

I think this is a misunderstanding. Not all posts of new users need approval, or are supposed to be moderated.
Afaik, we have a set of rules, set up by tank, that decide which posts go in the approval queue. Luckily, many (rightfully) don't - of course, sometimes that system misses a spam post which needs manual removal - but if I look at the logs, then 95-99 % of all spam gets filtered out automatically and doesn't even make it into the approval queue - or through to the forums.

Most importantly, spam attacks like the one in February 2019 are no longer possible with the current system. I think that is its main use, and not to catch every spam post automatically (or even every first-time poster).

Probably, the rules could focus even more on the first post of a new user, especially if it's posted in the 'Offtopic' area.
General adjustments could be made, like we removed the option to create signatures for new users.
Some spammers will still adapt, or are already trying to play the long game - but it seems manageable.

exactly correct. 100% isnt possible but we do make it hard

It appears that spammers can post to the Home -> Board index -> AutoHotkeyScripts and Functions -> Gaming section of the forum without their posts being moderated. Is this a desirable situation?

Cheers

It's usually not a big problem. We delete the one or two posts and ban the originators. Sometimes it takes 10 seconds, sometimes 3 hours.
So far, it hasn't been a honeypot. Not sure, if the spammers regularly read the 'Forum Issues', though.

Ok, I was under the impression that new posters had their posts moderated for a period. (The spam posts in question were all the first for that user.) Does this moderation not happen in some cases?

Like I explained above, we are focusing on the main problem areas, and don't require approval for every post of a new user (while unregistered guest posts always require approval). We try to find a middle way, and adapt if necessary.
We introduced most of the strict rules when the forums were under serious attack. Since then, we have relaxed some rules, and introduced a few new restrictions. Most spammers get stopped early, but most importantly we could prevent further attacks like the ones from 2019.

gregster wrote: ↑

27 Feb 2021, 07:11

Probably, the rules could focus even more on the first post of a new user, especially if it's posted in the 'Offtopic' area.

This is something that was actually added since my last post in February 2021. Since Offtopic was a main spam target (it still is, but you won't notice it anymore), it was added to the subforums which generally need approval. In some other (more 'open') subforums, certain additional rules might kick in. But this is not supposed to be bulletproof, afaik. Cleaning up the rest is usually less work than adding more legitimate posts to the approval queue.

It seems that a spammer has discovered this particular vulnerable area 'scripts and functions - gaming' and keeps posting as different users, the same type of spam to the same thread.

Anyway, thanks for the detailed explanation.

I've set "moderation queue" mode for new users on the gaming topic for now. We can remove it later on.

@joedf Thanks!

I remember a long time ago, old forum, a spammer posted in Offtopic but we never deleted. For some reason, for like a month+, all spammers posted in that one topic xD
they probably saw an active topic, posted in it, left. Repeat for next spam.

Wonder if it'd be worth keeping one spam topic open to see if we can repeat that kind of honeypot? was probably just a weird fluke, but was nice, and funny

Interesting idea...
Not sure what kind of info we could get, but maybe just maybe we can find a pattern in ip/location...

I just remember it was worth keeping because literally no spam anywhere else, ALL bots/spammers went to that one post.