What do you guys do with the bots 'round here?

panthrax

Currently active users:

panthrax,
immuffnuh,
shenaxsfdb,
Intatoicola,
shenaztbql,
shenakxfht,
arcadlill,
VeibeFekzitty,
carpinteyroqqm,
Swerrethy,
shenaurrun,
Sonorsmen,
shenavakit,
alolepype,
dringenek,
tomsdtd,
Alampnummug,
RemadE,
Greatttwenelm,
palaalmorce,
ojzenz8j,
SPOOLODIA,
LizSeqRed,
shenansygj,
CartErendadon,
shenagmwir

I can tell just by looking at the usernames that 99% of the users currently active are bots. How do you guys handle them here? Back on Zoklet, myself or a few others with the ability would "Delete Posts As Spam" which would delete every spambot post they had made with some advertisement then we would ban the bot from the IP level.

Of course they continued to return over and over and it was a constant battle. I had temporarily closed registration in part due to bots, but also due to other reasons as well. When I was last on Zoklet about a month ago or so, registration was still closed. Not sure if it still is or not...

Anyway, that's all besides the point. How do you guys handle the bots? I see that they are registered users that are currently active, but I don't see any of their posts. Is it due to post/thread moderation in place?

Just curious.

Darth Beaver

We use Spam-O-Matic, it deletes the account, the posts, all other accounts from that IP, all the posts from those accounts, and their mom's.

Dfg

^ that and before implementing that, I used a different combination. Suffice to say we were targeting by bot registration. It's fixed and handled now. But also I was running a honeypot to trap bots so i let the mods access the website. I am actually proactive when it comes to keeping things in good standing

panthrax

Oh, ok. Well if Spam-O-Matic auto-kills bots, their posts, their accounts, and their Mother's accounts/posts, then why do their registered nicknames show up in "Currently Active Users"? Surely that's not server lag still showing the registered and online bots even after Spam-O-Matic has killed them, yeah?

It kind of threw me off at first, when I was still trying to decide if I was going to try posting here or not. I saw 25-40 users online pretty much every time I checked. On closer inspection, they appear to be all bots. Besides myself, I've seen 4 other people post in the past week and most of them have been you, Dfg.

What happened? I swear I remember this place being more lively a few years ago.

Darth Beaver

It is not an automatic tool. When a bot creates a thread or post it goes into a moderated status that is not visible to regular members. At that point a staff member simply selects one post and applies the Spam-O-Matic option from the mod tools and poof, their posts and mom's posts and all accounts from that IP are either soft or hard deleted at the discretion of the staff member.

Dfg

panthrax wrote: »

Oh, ok. Well if Spam-O-Matic auto-kills bots, their posts, their accounts, and their Mother's accounts/posts, then why do their registered nicknames show up in "Currently Active Users"? Surely that's not server lag still showing the registered and online bots even after Spam-O-Matic has killed them, yeah?

It kind of threw me off at first, when I was still trying to decide if I was going to try posting here or not. I saw 25-40 users online pretty much every time I checked. On closer inspection, they appear to be all bots. Besides myself, I've seen 4 other people post in the past week and most of them have been you, Dfg.

What happened? I swear I remember this place being more lively a few years ago.

Times have changed. We're most geared towards life but we're slowly coming back. And yes most are bots. There used to be 200+ of them here scrapping stuff until I kicked their arse.

Daktologist

It may be quiet but its a tight knit community interested in constructive content and zero drama which I very much like. As it has been said before, we are a family and welcome new members with open arms.

The bots are a pain in the arse though.

Dfg

^That, added 3 more mods to cure the issue. Everything should be stable now.

Daktologist

I have noticed the problem hasn't been as bad as it has been recently. How does this automated bot killer work?.

Dfg

Daktologist wrote: »

I have noticed the problem hasn't been as bad as it has been recently. How does this automated bot killer work?.

Well before I went Nazi on the bots, they would simply register and get stuck because I had a simple plugin that will ask them to click on the rules page and accept our community rules. The bot operator didn't see that one. However, they did rape my Database with massive account creation.

When I saw the amount of lurkers and bots lurking this website and eating away the bandwidth, I mean it's like more than 400GB or something PER MONTH, I was like wtf is that shit.

Then I investigated, the bots would create an account and use the HOMEPAGE field and add their website name for SEO BS and then they would add random as ICQ numbers. The website they linked were from RUSSIA and other spammy Countries. But only Help and Suggestion forum was bombed due to Anonymous posting option.

So, I took steps:
A) Remove the Homepage field
Setup an auto redirection for bots.
C) Integrate a honeypot into the website to track everyone (bots) and get them blacklisted.
D) Setup plugins defense system. They're collection of plugins that log and monitor bots and users and based on their behavior ban them or alert the admins.

Everything is mostly automated. Most bots can't register anyway, the ones that can must be real human in order to actually post something and if they do post something it gets into moderation log assuming the user is not a bot.


Also, PM and posting options has been restricted. If a possible user comes in, I manually upgrade them to regular accounts.

Daktologist

You should IP ban China as well. I have noticed that a few bots are from Chinese IP addresses.

Dfg

Daktologist wrote: »

You should IP ban China as well. I have noticed that a few bots are from Chinese IP addresses.

Well I can Country ban some Country. China and India are low potential targets. Even Pakistan is better left banned.

Daktologist

^This. I doubt any Indians or Chinese will join up and become regular members.