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New Anti-Spam measures

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Pick2
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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#21 Post by Pick2 »

1> It was supposed to be mildly funny :D
2> the very next thing that happened after posting that was I Flagged a spammer :lol: ( I had not seen any in a few days )
3> ???
4> Profit !

There has been a slight uptick in spam on the "Other Forum" , from ~ one a week to almost one a day ( probably a coincidence )
I will endeavor to persevere ...

Randicus
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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#22 Post by Randicus »

dasein wrote:Distributed blacklisting is a very powerful and very robust tool. And nearly impossible for the Bad Guys to defeat.
Although any improvement of the board's anti-spam measures would be helpful, the blacklists should not be praised without reservation. Unfortunately, many Good Guys are also affected by such blacklists, because they can be too aggressive.
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=102796
Just had a little look into why you're being flagged as a spammer.
You're currently using a Dynamic IP handed out from Vodafone India.
This IP has previously been caught being used by an automatic spam-bot (it got caught in what is known as a honeypot).
This will only affect registration or changing your profile while you are still on that IP address.
I foresee many people, current and potential Debian users, in India and China not being able register, because of "ethnic IP banning." I have not experimented yet, but I would not be surprised if my IP address is considered spam. I have a bitch of a time trying to access sites outside China, because of this kind spam counter-measure. There are a huge number of web sites in North America and a few in Europe that I can never visit, because I am guilty of the crime of living in the wrong location. rupeshforu3 may be annoying, but he is unlikely to be the only person negatively affected by the implementation of this service.

Another factor to consider. Hopefully it will not be too big a problem.

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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#23 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

4D696B65 wrote:He can go here to ask for removal from the database.
http://www.stopforumspam.com/removal
AdrianTM wrote:There's no hacker in my grandma...

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Mez
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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#24 Post by Mez »

Randicus wrote:I foresee many people, current and potential Debian users, in India and China not being able register, because of "ethnic IP banning." I have not experimented yet, but I would not be surprised if my IP address is considered spam. I have a bitch of a time trying to access sites outside China, because of this kind spam counter-measure. There are a huge number of web sites in North America and a few in Europe that I can never visit, because I am guilty of the crime of living in the wrong location. rupeshforu3 may be annoying, but he is unlikely to be the only person negatively affected by the implementation of this service.

Another factor to consider. Hopefully it will not be too big a problem.
The IPs are not banned because of their ethinicity - they're banned if they've been used for spamming before.

Also, your IP seems to be fine (I ran a manul spam check and nothing came up)

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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#25 Post by Randicus »

Ethnic IP banning is a phrase I created for the post. I chose it, because many blacklists are not rigorous in sorting spam from real users. In effect, they ban IP addresses from certain countries. I am not claiming the ones used here do that, but this kind of measure inevitably involves some degree of it. I mentioned the problem with blacklisting IPs simply to draw attention to a potential problem. I do not want members thinking it is a panacea to the spam woes.
dilberts_left_nut wrote:
4D696B65 wrote:He can go here to ask for removal from the database.
http://www.stopforumspam.com/removal
Is that link displayed on the registration and edit details pages? Not many people will be aware of it.

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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#26 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

Randicus wrote:Is that link displayed on the registration and edit details pages? Not many people will be aware of it.
No idea, but it is now in the "New Anti-Spam measures" thread :)
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kedaha
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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#27 Post by kedaha »

I trust the measures are effective - even though I just reported a spam post which got removed quickly.
It seems there are quite a few measures like random captcha images and even questions like those used to sign up for the arch forums like:
What is the output of "date -u +%V$(uname)|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'"?(Required)

Code: Select all

$ date -u +%V$(uname)|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'
a114e11267c9a4f5cae4223c8ba5a5b6ffbf3d9c2c7f08736946618924f3484d
.
which perhaps requires a little more human intervention and could also be considered.
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Code: Select all

$ vrms

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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#28 Post by arochester »

There is a mis-quote wrongly attributed to Abraham Lincoln
You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not please all of the people all of the time.
Sometimes, general measures are for the good of the majority and will catch out some innocent individuals. Does that mean the general measures should not be put in place? Perfection is harder and may take some time!

We were drowning in spam. The spam in cyrillic has stopped. That does not mean that everybody in Russia is a spammer. The spam where users said they lived in South America and lead to Polish websites has stopped. Not everybody in Poland is a spammer ...Is bremenpl still with us?

On balance are people happy or unhappy with direction of the changes?

confuseling
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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#29 Post by confuseling »

kedaha wrote:...
What is the output of "date -u +%V$(uname)|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'"?(Required)

Code: Select all

$ date -u +%V$(uname)|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'
a114e11267c9a4f5cae4223c8ba5a5b6ffbf3d9c2c7f08736946618924f3484d
.
which perhaps requires a little more human intervention and could also be considered.
If you don't want any more of those pesky "I'm having trouble getting Debian to work" posts...
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https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3A ... terms+here

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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#30 Post by kedaha »

arochester wrote: On balance are people happy or unhappy with direction of the changes?
Happy. Thanks for adopting measures against the deluge.
kedaha wrote:...
What is the output of "date -u +%V$(uname)|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'"?(Required)
...
which perhaps requires a little more human intervention and could also be considered.
confuseling wrote:If you don't want any more of those pesky "I'm having trouble getting Debian to work" posts...
yes, there have been quite a few. No trouble getting it to work in ubunto or Windows though. :roll:
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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#31 Post by Bulkley »

Randicus wrote:Ethnic IP banning is a phrase I created for the post. I chose it, because many blacklists are not rigorous in sorting spam from real users. In effect, they ban IP addresses from certain countries. I am not claiming the ones used here do that, but this kind of measure inevitably involves some degree of it. I mentioned the problem with blacklisting IPs simply to draw attention to a potential problem. I do not want members thinking it is a panacea to the spam woes.
The better spam checkers, such as stopforumspam, don't blacklist on the basis of IP alone. They use a combination of IP, email address and user name. Their database is built on confirmed complaints and is very reliable.

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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#32 Post by dasein »

Bulkley wrote:They use a combination of IP, email address and user name.
The really smart move would be to blacklist based primarily on spamvertised URL. URL blacklisting has a proven history of effectiveness against email spam, and has very few false positives. The flip side is that it's probably more computationally expensive.

Randicus
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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#33 Post by Randicus »

Bulkley wrote:The better spam checkers, such as stopforumspam, don't blacklist on the basis of IP alone. They use a combination of IP, email address and user name. Their database is built on confirmed complaints and is very reliable.
Hopefully it works as well as it sounds. What about the other one? Honeypot?
And rupeshforu? According to Mez, he was flagged as a spammer, because of his service provider, not because his name was entered onto a list of spammers.
Hi there,

Just had a little look into why you're being flagged as a spammer.

You're currently using a Dynamic IP handed out from Vodafone India.

This IP has previously been caught being used by an automatic spam-bot (it got caught in what is known as a honeypot).

This will only affect registration or changing your profile while you are still on that IP address.
I believe this incident was the day after the change was implemented.
arochester wrote:There is a mis-quote wrongly attributed to Abraham Lincoln
You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not please all of the people all of the time.
The issue is not about pleasing anyone. It is a case of cost-benefit analysis. The most benefit with the least drawback. Or as you put it:
Sometimes, general measures are for the good of the majority and will catch out some innocent individuals. Does that mean the general measures should not be put in place?
The question then is; Does the benefit of removing a great amount of spam (but not all) out-weigh the disadvantage of a smaller number of potential members not being able to register?
That of course will be a point of debate between members with different views. For my part, I am reminded of another famous quote.
I would rather have a hundred criminals go free than one innocent person go to prison.
I know many of the board's members will not understand my concern. Because they live in Europe and North America, they do not know what is like to be the victim of such measures. Believe me, it is very frustrating. As much as I would like to see the spam quashed, I do not like the idea of one potential new member being denied for every ten, twenty or hundred spammers denied. Simply put, my position on the scale of cost-benefit analysis is influenced by my experience.
On balance are people happy or unhappy with direction of the changes?
To reiterate what I stated in an earlier post, my intention was not to attack the mighty Mez, campaign for the right of spammers or to make myself look good. I simply want members to be aware of a potential (and very likely) problem that I believe deserves consideration. My concern is for the health and future of the board. Both for current and future members. (And potential future members.)

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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#34 Post by vbrummond »

:o
Last edited by vbrummond on 2013-03-26 06:30, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#35 Post by Absent Minded »

Randicus wrote:......
The question then is; Does the benefit of removing a great amount of spam (but not all) out-weigh the disadvantage of a smaller number of potential members not being able to register?
That of course will be a point of debate between members with different views. For my part, I am reminded of another famous quote.
I would rather have a hundred criminals go free than one innocent person go to prison.
I know many of the board's members will not understand my concern. Because they live in Europe and North America, they do not know what is like to be the victim of such measures. Believe me, it is very frustrating. As much as I would like to see the spam quashed, I do not like the idea of one potential new member being denied for every ten, twenty or hundred spammers denied. Simply put, my position on the scale of cost-benefit analysis is influenced by my experience.
On balance are people happy or unhappy with direction of the changes?
To reiterate what I stated in an earlier post, my intention was not to attack the mighty Mez, campaign for the right of spammers or to make myself look good. I simply want members to be aware of a potential (and very likely) problem that I believe deserves consideration. My concern is for the health and future of the board. Both for current and future members. (And potential future members.)
Just to be fair about things and be clear, we are not talking about 1 person in every 100 or even 1000. In less than 24 hours these new measures blocked over 20,000 spam attempts. Additionally, if someone is not able to register they are redirected to a page that tells them how to contact our staff to remidy the problem. So, nobody is being locked out with out a remidy to fix the situation. So your analigy doesn't really work in this situation.

I wonder if they use Debian on the Enterprise? To quote a little SiFi logic, "The needs of the many out-weigh the needs of the few or the one." This can also be revirsed in some cases.

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Randicus
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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#36 Post by Randicus »

Absent Minded wrote:Additionally, if someone is not able to register they are redirected to a page that tells them how to contact our staff to remidy the problem. So, nobody is being locked out with out a remidy to fix the situation.
If so, that would greatly reduce the chances of people being locked out. I am glad to know such a measure has been taken. If people who may be adversely affected have an option to easily resolve it, that is good. Hopefully my concern can be laid aside.

I shall not comment on the attitude put forth by more than one person concerning the few who could have been/are/would have been affected.

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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#37 Post by AnInkedSoul »

Absent Minded wrote:Additionally, if someone is not able to register they are redirected to a page that tells them how to contact our staff to remidy the problem. So, nobody is being locked out with out a remidy to fix the situation.
Actually it does not seem to tell you how to contact the staff, you are just told the following on the registration page.
Your IP ------ or your username ----- or your e-mail address --------- has been blocked because it is blacklisted. For details please see http://www.stopforumspam.com/api?------ ... ----------
An entry on the blacklist may have several reasons:
1. You are a well-known spammer.
2. Last time a well-known spammer was using the dynamic IP address which you got from your ISP (Internet Service Provider), your e-mail address or the username you have choosen.
3. Your ISP is well-known for a lot of spamming customers and is not fighting against spammers enough.
Oh and that last reason seems kinda shitty to me.

Just sayin...

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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#38 Post by llivv »

I guess it ain't prefect yet, oh well ....grrrrrrrrr
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confuseling
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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#39 Post by confuseling »

I'd be more convinced if the people complaining about unfair profiling were spamhunters.

Just saying...
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Randicus
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Re: New Anti-Spam measures

#40 Post by Randicus »

Who is complaining?
I pointed out a potential problem. Concern is not complaining.
AnInkedSoul provided information showing that the safeguard Absent Minded mentioned does not follow the process attributed to it. That is a clarification, not a complaint.

Anyway. I gave up on it. I only made this post to point out that raising a concern is not complaining. I do not know about AnInkedSoul, but if I would have complained, everyone would have known it.

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