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A Bit Of A Spammer Problem....

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A Bit Of A Spammer Problem....
Looking for some advice.

I have recently had some problems with a "drug" spammer- posting links to places to buy Viagra, Cialis and the like. My board requires membership, except for one forum- the one he is attacking. I keep one forum open so non-members can post- I think that is important for feedback. So I do want to keep this option. He uses various open proxies, and I lock each one down when it comes up (ban site IP), but as you know, there are a LOT of open proxies.

So what I did as a first step was use the tag subsitution- Viagra now becomes "French Toast", he links to 2-3 main web sites, so I subsitute various innocuos phrases for the URLs. A good first p. But he is also PMing members!

Is there a way I can lock down the one "Guest" acount from sending PMs at all?

Any other ideas how to keep this guy in check?
dave

Big Cartoon DataBase
Big Comic Book DataBase
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Re: [carfac] A Bit Of A Spammer Problem.... In reply to
In Reply To:
Is there a way I can lock down the one "Guest" acount from sending PMs at all?
You can change the permissions of the message_send action to exclude this user, although I think you'll have to create a custom Group for real users and exclude this guest account from it.

Adrian
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Re: [brewt] A Bit Of A Spammer Problem.... In reply to
If I make a new group- lets say "Approved"- how do I make all new sign ups in that group automatically?

Thanks!

Dave
dave

Big Cartoon DataBase
Big Comic Book DataBase
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Re: [carfac] A Bit Of A Spammer Problem.... In reply to
Hrm, good question :)

First of all, is this guest user account a normal account?

If it's a real "Guest User" group account, then you can allow guest posting in that particular forum, and then restrict message sending to every other group (if that isn't already done).

Adrian
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Re: [carfac] A Bit Of A Spammer Problem.... In reply to
I have a plugin made by Jason that auto assigns new, email verifed members to an admin designated group based on their email address variables. May need a little mod'ing but may work out.

Aren't all members with a verified email address have a 'registered' flag on each user account? I seem to remember something. Also, aren't registered users in the 'User' group and the Guest user have a different status?

Dave
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Re: [bretzke] A Bit Of A Spammer Problem.... In reply to
Actually, I spoke too soon. The plugin I have was for a completely different script---not GForum. Blush

Dave