Profile sniffers

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

So the last couple of days I've been looking to see who's online...Most times they are "guest" and the majority of these guests are not looking at threads, but looking at profiles...I wish a little bird could give me some IP's for these "guests".. I think I have a feeling of hwere they are coming from...just sayn : )

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

I bet there is a setting in the forum software Matt is using to make it impossible for anonymous "Guests" to view profiles. Just a thought.

[SoylentGreen]

There's probably a setting that's used to hide profiles.

However, you can hide most bits of information on your own profile if you wish.

It's doubtful that many people could get much personal info from the profiles listing in any case.

But, yeah it would be nice to see who's looking...

S.G.

[Katerina]

That's interesting! But I am sure too, that guests cannot see registered profiles.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

I agree, I just found it curious...

[Matthew Chan]

I am not sure why it is happening but these forums are spammed very heavily with spambots or forum spammers to set up accounts and post spam advertising.

Everyone must have a legitimate email in order to post here.  They also need to do a manual confirmation.  Not only that, the email submitted is cross-checked by a spam-prevention service of known forum spammers.

Many of those would-be spammers cannot cross over beyond the guest because they are being stopped cold either through a ban of their IP address or email addresses.

So, there are many illegitimate guests (spam-bots) combing this forum.  I have not yet blocked profile information because I assumed that some people would want to contact one another.  But perhaps I need to reconsider that.

This is one of the hated tasks that I don't often talk about. Keeping the robo-spammers out is a job without the right software tools in place.  So far, so good except I hate receiving about 50-70 emails a day from bogus registrations. It is very disheartening to see.

Matthew

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

We're surrounded by trolls! copyright trolls, content trolls, emails trolls and spambots.. You're doing a great job keeping them out thus far, I'm active on a few other forums, where they've succeeded and it's amazing who much spam is dumped on a daily basis.

[Katerina]

Well, yes, so far there was no any spam message in this forum....

[Matthew Chan]

A couple slipped by the system and was reported by Buddhapi today and it was promptly removed.

[DoctorC]

You may have done this already, but if not, you should be working this concept into your htaccess files:

http://williamfaulkner.co.uk/2007/09/picscout-getty-images-and-goodbye-istockphoto/

http://danielwebb.us/software/bot-trap/



DoctorC

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Thanx for sharing DoctorC and welcome to the forum!

Going to look further into the bot trap, it's seem a little outdated so some modification may be in order. I've already blocked all of Israel, but now that getty has accquired picscout there is the chance they may move the operation to the states..

[Oscar Michelen]

buddhapi: Thats exactly what I just posted in response to an earlier post of yours. I suspect that PicSCout will remain in Israel for some time though.