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Mods: List of spammers w/ links & search terms

Drack

By Drack,
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The Damned Enthusiast

The Damned

Posted
Posted
There should be a picture of a famous video game character like Mario, Zelda, or Sonic, and you have to type in what video game character it is. Don't see how bots could deal with that.

That would be unfair to people who haven't heard of certain video game characters.

Honestly? If someone is joining the forum here, they fucking know who Mario, Zelda and Sonic are.

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mDuo13 Newbie

mDuo13

Posted
Posted
There should be a picture of a famous video game character like Mario, Zelda, or Sonic, and you have to type in what video game character it is. Don't see how bots could deal with that.

That would be unfair to people who haven't heard of certain video game characters.

Honestly? If someone is joining the forum here, they fucking know who Mario, Zelda and Sonic are.

Basically, the only type of spammers that ever get past a CAPTCHA are (a) humans, and (B) bots specifically designed to break your system. The more unique your system, the fewer bots will be designed to break it. There is already a script that can break phpBB2's CAPTCHA with 97% efficiency. The Mario/Zelda/Sonic test would certainly be unique enough that it would last until someone figured it out, and of course, you can offer 1 or 2 retries if people don't know who the character is, just as a safety; it won't help bots unless those bots have a significant success rate already, and it'll at least slow down their registration.

The so-called "kitten test" is also a good idea. Especially if OCR provides its own kitten pictures, making it more unique.

Switching to vBulletin and giving moderators more power over banning won't stop the fact that the spam is there in the first place; it'll just put more responsibilities on moderators. Not that it wouldn't be a good thing anyway, but more measures are needed.

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The Coop Enthusiast

The Coop

Posted
Posted
There should be a picture of a famous video game character like Mario, Zelda, or Sonic, and you have to type in what video game character it is. Don't see how bots could deal with that.

That would be unfair to people who haven't heard of certain video game characters.

Honestly? If someone is joining the forum here, they fucking know who Mario, Zelda and Sonic are.

Actually, they may not. People may have heard of them, but that doesn't mean they know what they look like. Not everyone explores console gaming, and not everyone has gotten to play those games on the various systems they've been released on (especially Zelda and Mario, since they're Nintendo-only console characters).

And has been pointed out in the past, people who sign up for this site aren't necessarily video game players. They may simply be coming here because they want the music, and couldn't care less about video games and their music. They don't care about the musical sources of the remixes. They just want the remixes they like.

Edit: Oh, and how about this... when someone joins, they have to click a link that plays a ten second clip of a famous video games theme. They then have ten seconds to play a quickie "Name That Tune"-like game, or else they have to start the whole signing up process over. Sure, it's a bit mean spirited, but just think of the fun!

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Fenrir Newbie

Fenrir

Posted
Posted
Hmm, The Coop's suggestion gives an idea. Maybe setting up a question where the answer can be found on the site.

ie: Which ReMixer has a ReMix named "The Ken Song"?

I'd like to see a spambot with the efficiency to search the entire site and answer that.

And only truly dedicated OCR-fans will have the know-how to JOIN THE FORUMS!

TEST YOUR STRENGTH AGAINST THE FEARSOME CONFIRMATION QUESTION

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The Orichalcon Rookie

The Orichalcon

Posted
Posted
Hmm, The Coop's suggestion gives an idea. Maybe setting up a question where the answer can be found on the site.

ie: Which ReMixer has a ReMix named "The Ken Song"?

I'd like to see a spambot with the efficiency to search the entire site and answer that.

And only truly dedicated OCR-fans will have the know-how to JOIN THE FORUMS!

TEST YOUR STRENGTH AGAINST THE FEARSOME CONFIRMATION QUESTION

Not really, just post some instructions on how to find the answer to the question. Anyone could answer it with just a quick sidebar search.

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The Coop Enthusiast

The Coop

Posted
Posted
To those of you against the whole "name the character" idea, you DO know there is a mascot project about to be done.

HMMM, MAYBE THAT MIGHT BE A HUGE HELP TO THOSE THAT DON'T KNOW A MASCOT THAT THE THING IS ASKING FOR!!!!!

There's just one problem, Arek. Do you really think people are going to want to dig through the website to find the answer, or even dig through 150 different images to find the one that looks like what was pictured? Considering the rash of seemingly ADD-riddled people that've been getting more and more common, I sincerely doubt it.

I like the idea of the user having to fill something in. But, what if the question at the end pertained to some aspect of the sign up process (something like "What word follows, 'By clicking 'submit', you agree to these _______'?", or maybe a fill-in-the-blank setup along the same lines)? Then the answer is either right there on the screen, or just a "Back" button click away. Then you still have the user needing to look for an answer (thus making it a greater chance that it really is a person and not a bot), but it makes for less of a wild goose chase through images, tunes and forums.

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Arek the Absolute Newbie

Arek the Absolute

Posted
Posted
To those of you against the whole "name the character" idea, you DO know there is a mascot project about to be done.

HMMM, MAYBE THAT MIGHT BE A HUGE HELP TO THOSE THAT DON'T KNOW A MASCOT THAT THE THING IS ASKING FOR!!!!!

There's just one problem, Arek. Do you really think people are going to want to dig through the website to find the answer, or even dig through 150 different images to find the one that looks like what was pictured? Considering the rash of seemingly ADD-riddled people that've been getting more and more common, I sincerely doubt it.

I like the idea of the user having to fill something in. But, what if the question at the end pertained to some aspect of the sign up process (something like "What word follows, 'By clicking 'submit', you agree to these _______'?", or maybe a fill-in-the-blank setup along the same lines)? Then the answer is either right there on the screen, or just a "Back" button click away. Then you still have the user needing to look for an answer (thus making it a greater chance that it really is a person and not a bot), but it makes for less of a wild goose chase through images, tunes and forums.

There could be a link to the project under the pic so that way they can find the correct answer.

JUST AN IDEA MAN STOP HATIN

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The Coop Enthusiast

The Coop

Posted
Posted
To those of you against the whole "name the character" idea, you DO know there is a mascot project about to be done.

HMMM, MAYBE THAT MIGHT BE A HUGE HELP TO THOSE THAT DON'T KNOW A MASCOT THAT THE THING IS ASKING FOR!!!!!

There's just one problem, Arek. Do you really think people are going to want to dig through the website to find the answer, or even dig through 150 different images to find the one that looks like what was pictured? Considering the rash of seemingly ADD-riddled people that've been getting more and more common, I sincerely doubt it.

I like the idea of the user having to fill something in. But, what if the question at the end pertained to some aspect of the sign up process (something like "What word follows, 'By clicking 'submit', you agree to these _______'?", or maybe a fill-in-the-blank setup along the same lines)? Then the answer is either right there on the screen, or just a "Back" button click away. Then you still have the user needing to look for an answer (thus making it a greater chance that it really is a person and not a bot), but it makes for less of a wild goose chase through images, tunes and forums.

There could be a link to the project under the pic so that way they can find the correct answer.

JUST AN IDEA MAN STOP HATIN

But even a link still means they have to dig through every mascot to find the matching info.

And there ain't no hatin', yo. I jus tryin' to point suh'm out over all yo shoutin'.

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KWarp Newbie

KWarp

Posted
Posted

Clearly, the goal here is to make registering as easy as possible for humans, and nigh-impossible for non-humans.

Do I see some discrimination here? :wink:

A wild goose chase of quizzes seem to be ruled out, as well as conventional methods.... good luck finding a solution guys. :?

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SilverStar Newbie

SilverStar

Posted
Posted

Maybe use a generator that pulls out one of a few random methods and presents that, along with the directions, in some sort of tagless, randomly named image map, so they'd have to specifically create a bot just for OCR.. and then every now and then, just have a new method added, or change the internal links for verification and stuff?

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The Coop Enthusiast

The Coop

Posted
Posted

Here's an oddball idea...

Since OCR deals with video games, their music, remixes, and the like, why not try something a bit different. When signing up, at the bottom of the sign up page, a word will appear. You'll be asked to type into an empty box what that word is. Each word will have something to do with video games, remixing or OCR in general.

But, to avoid having the bots know what the word is by searching the html page, each word would actually be a gif or jpg, and that file would be named something nonsensical (like "1-45.gif"). With a bunch of these to be randomly chosen when people show up, it would make it a lot tougher for bots register, but it would make it about as easy as possible for those signing up.

Anyway, just a thought I figured I'd throw into the breeze.

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