Spam Entries

Hi,

I gradually get annoyed getting permanently entries like this:

Regards by Very well job here with that website! Congratulations, I love it very much. I really appreciate your work here.
http://ephedrine-z.blogspot.com/ http://ephedrine-c.blogspot.com/ http://ephedrine-b.blogspot.com/ http://ephedrine-y.blogspot.com/ http://ephedrine-x.blogspot.com/ http://ephedrine-a.blogspot.com/
http://ephedrine-z.blogspot.com/ http://ephedrine-y.blogspot.com/ http://ephedrine-b.blogspot.com/ http://ephedrine-a.blogspot.com/ http://ephedrine-x.blogspot.com/ http://ephedrine-c.blogspot.com/ Warm regards Alex!


Can you somehow find a way to avoid such "spam entries"? (I mean provide an update ...)

Many thanks in advance!

mik

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

http://www.bio-atlas.de & http://www.biologie-lexikon.de

Best and easiest option I can recommend would be to require user login before they can submit listing.

If these spams are submitted by automated bots than another easy to try option you can try is, create a custom field within Link Properties (checkbox for instance) and require for user to check/select it to submit the listing successfully.

Hope this helps.

Vishal

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Web Hosting Kit: A to Z of Web Hosting! http://www.webhostingkit.com/
Software Devil: Software Search Made Easy! http://www.softwaredevil.com/
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... no, unfortunately this does not really help. Simply because I do not want to force my visitors to register and to log in in order to submit a link.
Moreover I do not want to change the code of the templates on my own by creating additonal check boxes ...

I would rather prefer a general solution to this problem... for all customers using gossamer links ...

mik

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

http://www.bio-atlas.de & http://www.biologie-lexikon.de

Have you tried putting your own URL or IP within
setup>>build options>>db_referers
so that additions are only allowed via your own website?

- no, I have not tried that yet - thanks. I will try that out and see if it helps.
I will drop you a message, as soon as I know wheter it works or not.

mik

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

http://www.bio-atlas.de & http://www.biologie-lexikon.de

... unfortunately it does not work. Anyone else who has got an idea what to do? Anyone who belongs to the "staff"?
By the by: The spammer seems to be able to take a choice which does not exist on my page currently: "awaiting payment".

Hmmmmm....


mik

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

http://www.bio-atlas.de & http://www.biologie-lexikon.de

Try this,

Get his IP while he submits the form.

Edit your .htaccess file and ban the IP for a while.

If he is manually spamming your site, there is not much you can do (except try user registration), as even random image security would not solve the issue.

P.S.. Do you know our board genius Andy has a plugin which will allow you to Block Domains to be submitted. Maybe that would be your best solution - you should look into it. (his plugins have made huge difference on my sites, they should help you too) : http://www.ultranerds.com/...ck_Domains_Pro_L133/

Vishal

Vishal

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Web Hosting Kit: A to Z of Web Hosting! http://www.webhostingkit.com/
Software Devil: Software Search Made Easy! http://www.softwaredevil.com/
-------------------------------------------------------

One way to stop automated submissions is through captcha's. Unfortunately, Gossamer Links currently does not have built in support for captchas, but it is on our todo list.

Adrian

Hello Adrian,

Thank you for the reply. Seems like captchas would be a 'great' feature to add for Rate Link function to. Is GT planning to have captchas for rating function too?

Vishal

Vishal

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Web Hosting Kit: A to Z of Web Hosting! http://www.webhostingkit.com/
Software Devil: Software Search Made Easy! http://www.softwaredevil.com/
-------------------------------------------------------

... I would not mind a plugin - in general. But ... this one is not quite a bargain. In some or the other way I thought I would not have to buy a bundle of plug-ins etc. just to keep gossamer links going in a sensible way. Being able to ban IPs actually should be a basic part of gossamer links - or any other solution. If you think I am mistaken, do let me know.

mik

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

http://www.bio-atlas.de & http://www.biologie-lexikon.de

It won't be used for the rating system because it already limits ratings by one per ip.

Adrian

Banning ip's is built into GLinks - Setup => Misc. Options => bans

Adrian

- thanks for the hint ;-)

mik

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

http://www.bio-atlas.de & http://www.biologie-lexikon.de

Hello Adrian,

Thank you for the quick reply.

Current time limit that each IP can rate the 'same' listing is about 24hours (1 day), right?

So the listing owner wil be limited to rating his listing just once per day, however I have seen practical examples where users have implimented below method and have rated their listing over 100 times in a day, and not to mention they have used the same method to rate their competitors listing in negative manner.

Lets assume I am having a scripts directory (soon I will be ) and John Doe is having a software listed at my site. Now all what he needs to do get his listed top rated is put below image code within the HTML code of his web site and 'everytime' the page is viewed his listing will be rated at my directory without even the page viewer knowing about it.



In addition, what is worst is that directory Glinks current IP block system would be a total failure in stopping such spam, as the rating is not from the same IP.

However if captchas function was added (can be even made optional from admin setup, so each directory owner can decide if they want it or not) such link rating spam can be significantly limited if not completely stopped.

I really wish you will look into the depth of the situation and will consider adding captchas type system for link rating too.

Again thank you for all the help and support.

Vishal

Vishal

-------------------------------------------------------
Web Hosting Kit: A to Z of Web Hosting! http://www.webhostingkit.com/
Software Devil: Software Search Made Easy! http://www.softwaredevil.com/
-------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

I have the same problem.

If you do a WHOIS on the IPs of each of the envoys to determine the country of origin you find out the following:

221.156.213.59 --> Korea
221.57.176.114 --> japan
210.183.193.78 --> Korea
218.234.166.125 --> Korea
218.216.213.77 --> Japan
218.38.200.105 --> Korea
218.158.114.22 --> Korea
24.96.123.39 --> US
203.68.16.2 --> Taiwan Republic of China
219.173.12.91 --> Japan
210.101.56.220 --> Korea
61.101.5.200 --> Korea
211.155.226.166 --> China
200.27.88.226 --> Chile
82.233.19.69 --> France
211.212.26.187 --> Korea
etc, etc

but then, if you go through the same IPs with TRACEROUTE you find that all of them are started on the same company located in:

xxxx W. Las Colinas Blvd
Ste 350e
Irving, US


Good bye,

JoseML

Hi Jose,

I am glad to see that I am not the only one who thinks that there is a rating security hole.

I assume those IP's were from the user who put the same link on any given page and did refresh many number of times. However if you take a situation where xyz.com is receiving 100 unique visitiors every day, and if the site owner is having above image code in the site source, then one cannot say if the rating was spam or not, as xyz's listing will be rated 100 times from different IP's... every day.

Vishal

-------------------------------------------------------
Web Hosting Kit: A to Z of Web Hosting! http://www.webhostingkit.com/
Software Devil: Software Search Made Easy! http://www.softwaredevil.com/
-------------------------------------------------------

Glad to see I'm not the only one with this issue.

Are the rest of you having a similar problem where these spam link additions are not sending your emails? I get emails about all the normal link additions, but these spam ones don't for some reason...
Blacknight Solutions - Hosting
Search.ie
Armchair.ie

- I do have the same problem. So I am really looking forward a solution to stop these entries.

mik

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

http://www.bio-atlas.de & http://www.biologie-lexikon.de

There is a plugin called Filter_Words that allows you to prevent certain words in link submissions. From what I can gather you are trying to stop spam in reviews - you might be able to modify this plugin to do that.

This is a great plugin for sites that don't run on a membership system. Since installing it the spam submissions on one of my sites have virtually disappeared (easy when 'texas holdem' is one of the banned phrases ).

Hi Aus Dave,

Any thoughts on how filter_words might fix the rating security raised above?

I believe that captcha type system might be the best solution to stop automated link rating spam.

Vishal

Vishal

-------------------------------------------------------
Web Hosting Kit: A to Z of Web Hosting! http://www.webhostingkit.com/
Software Devil: Software Search Made Easy! http://www.softwaredevil.com/
-------------------------------------------------------

My problem is related to link submissions NOT reviews
Blacknight Solutions - Hosting
Search.ie
Armchair.ie

Vishal - no idea sorry, the only sites where I use the review functionality of Links I require a login. You might be able to adapt the plugin to the review system rather than link submissions.

blacknight - this plugin will work perfectly for you then.

Hi Aus Dave,

Thank you for the input.

I am not much worried about Link or review Spam, as I require user registration and also email validation before they can submit any listing. (However your filter plugin suggestion is wonderful, and should be very useful if we change the link and review submission method) So it is easy to keep that in check. However to keep the site interactive asking user to register before they can vote for any link just makes them mad and creates friction.

In addition, Link Rating spam is soo easy with GLinks and there are many benefits of doing it. As almost all GLinks site have Popular/Top links page and only certain number of listings are being displayed there. So for playing with the current link rating security hole, the spammer actually get rewarded by being on the top of popular page and gets the reputation of being a legitimate web site.

Hence I request the Captcha type feature as that is likely to stop all-most all automated spam which normally accounts for over 95% link rating spam.

Vishal

Vishal

-------------------------------------------------------
Web Hosting Kit: A to Z of Web Hosting! http://www.webhostingkit.com/
Software Devil: Software Search Made Easy! http://www.softwaredevil.com/
-------------------------------------------------------

... I am wondering if there is anything "in the pipeline". Simply because it makes me more angry each day getting entries from robots. I hope you do not mind me expecting YOU from gossamerthreads to come up with a sensible solution to the problem.

mikoo

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

http://www.bio-atlas.de & http://www.biologie-lexikon.de

... did I forget to say that I would not mind getting an answer?



mikoo

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

http://www.bio-atlas.de & http://www.biologie-lexikon.de