I believe it would be good if an urgent banning module could be developed as quickly as possible here.

THis remains one of the most visible waeknesses of GM. Right now, I have users that engage in Spam. THe only way to prevent them from doing harm is to suspend their account.

BUT, this does not prevent them from creating a new account and starting to spam again.

THis is worse than a security flaw. It leaves GM open to all sorts of abuses.

Can you guys please develop a quick addon that would:

- Make GM record all IPs a user has used to access GM.

- Allow the Admin to ban such IPs so that the user would no longer be able to access GM at all.

And while you are at it, please add an entry in the table that appears in Users --> List All that would show the status of the accounts. Right now, if an account is suspended, it is impossible to know this unless one clicks the "modify button". Another way to do this would be to add a link in the Users page that would show sonly suspended accounts.

I hope this can be done very fast. Small solutions like this need to be done to allow people to solve issues temporarily. We do not need to wait months until you release the next version in order to see solutions. That does not make sense.

THis request is urgent because our WEb sites and the servers that host them could end up being blocked by all the RBL lists that exist today, thus preventing us from continuing to provide service. It could also result in our servers or ISPs cancelling our accounts because they would see their IPs blacklisted on the Internet.

Thanks.

Great points, what's GT's solution/timescale for a solution on this?

Jason

I'll see if I can work on a solution for this on Monday for you guys. I'm thinking of something that does ip/host banning like Gossamer Forum does. This would be implemented in login.cgi, webmail.cgi, and register.cgi. Any other ideas?

Adrian

Is this solution still being worked on? Just checking to make sure we have not been forgotten.

Thanks.

Hello!

I do not think IP banning is the only solution. Infact it will or SHALL not even serve even half the way!

Because most of the users have a dynamic IP address sytem. So what one could do is a 100.100.10* or 100.100.100.* but not an IP!

Such a function needs to capture some more qualities beyond just ip recognition. Like for e.g. the sign-up email addresses. For people like above that faces such a problem need to change the signup system to validation system and capture the spammers by their email addresses.

So for e.g. xxx_sss@hotmail.com would be captured as a once_spamer, then hotmail signup needs to be under observation. I mean domain name capture during the sign_up. This would then serve as an extra feature to fish those spamers. Activate function xxx if email is *@hotmail.com.

Hello Adrian and Alex!

Actually, I have been thinking on it after this post. Now, all this problems are not just related to Gmail but in General to each and every product.

Will anyone disagree to this?

Looking to many functions that Gossamer Threads have developed in the past few years, it is truely not correct to let users remain with one function in one product and the same not available into anathor. I have been analysing this and observing this since a year now.

Take a look into Back-up system. Links SQL will back-up the entire database and GMail does not have this feature. Why? There are so many functions that are there and that could be applied to other products. Its also unfair to ask for extra money for that functions in other products overburdening the users financially.

I think this problem should be addressed at the GT product level and not just Gmail. There needs to be modules that works generally with GForum and Links SQL as well.

Hey, I forgot to enter URL brackets into Gossamer Threads and wanted to edit it, but it did it on its own, can it be? I maybe I did it and do not remember anymore!

Hi,

Obviously the same backup code can not work for all products. Gossamer Mail has data folder that would need backing up, and it's not realistic to be able to do that from the web for medium to large sites (as there can be 10+ gigs worth of data). Even the largest Links SQL install is only 600 Megs worth of data to backup (a full dmoz install -- indexes do not need to get backed up of course). Gossamer Forum has an attachments directory that would need to get backed up. They are all different and require different code.

We do try and share as much code as possible between products: the installer, a lot of the admin interface, bundled tools like FileMan and MySQLMan, etc.

I'm not saying the features aren't a good idea, I'm just saying it's not as easy as copying the code from one product into another. Each product needs a special tailored version of the feature to make it work well.

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

Hello Alex!

For some points you mentioned above, I do agree that it cannot be logically convincing to have sub_routines that works with every program.

However, for many other areas that could be the topic of discussion, I disagree. This could be perhaphs also my own taste of making concepts as an Architect that may differ to you as an Architect.

In design of Functions, I work with logic - Commonality or Uniformity of Approaches - until there is a requirement of change. Apply this principle to your products by selecting different functions and you shall land in the direction of what I am talking about.

Since you always have been constructive and open to new ideas, I shall take an oppurtunity to make a list of my vision on the development of products (and not to criticise negatively and say it`s all wrong) I am using in the lines of the debate in ther last messages. I shall place this within the next few days in the General Forum. Hope that you continue out there, since it would be some hours I shall invest.

However, to continue this topic here would be unfair to the user that placed a problem here which seems to be accute and evident, since the expectation would be a solution of a problem faced and not a lengthy debates on may-be and may-be-nots.

I am not sure why this thread has been hijacked into a backup discussion.

My question was about an urgent need for a banning module. This module was promised for the next few days. Now obviously, it's been weeks and still no banning module.

This is an emergency and it should be treated as such. In my initial post, I gave the various reasons why this is needed immediately.

I do not want to see my IPs balcklisted and thus kicked out by mys ISP if their IP ranges become balcklisted because of a few users that may totally spoil what we are trying to do.

So, I hope this can be taken care of immediately.

Thank you.

I just added ban support into Gossamer Mail tonight. We'll be doing testing tomorrow and the release should be soon after that.

Adrian