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German spammers?
Anyone out there getting a lot of spam from Germany? Links has been live on my site for only about a week, and already I must be listed in some auto submission tool for German websites, go figure?

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Some Links 2.0 users have been hit by spammers in Germany. Search the following forums:

Links 2.0 Customization
Links 2.0 Discussion

for Spam auto submission

using And for search options

and All posts in the Date Range

and enter 150 in the Hits field.

Regards,

Eliot Lee

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Thanks, I will read those through later.

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Hey, I found my spammer....

http://www.searchup.de/promo-ten/maschinen.html

I have not figured out my plan of defense/attack, just excited I found them. I have read many other posts with strategies, but if after looking this site over... if you have any specific plan of defense against them, let me know.

Lastly, you may want to check if your own site is listed here, they got a bunch that they auto submit to.

- Tim

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
I would recommend applying the code hacks listed many times in the Links 2.0 Customization Forum and also in the Resource Center. (When I was using Links 2.0, I mimicked this User Account System, by using multiple page submissions with users having to first select a category, then fill out a user profile page -> that went to the same links.db file, then the user added link information, then added a description, then confirmed the submission, then finally submitted their link.)

I could care less if my sites are listed in Auto-Submission sites because there is no way to add sites in my directory through auto-submission...

They would have to first find a way to break my User Account system...I am using Links SQL now that forces users to first create a User Account, then choose a Category, then they can add their site in that category.

It is virtually impossible for any auto-submission services to crack into my directory.

Wink

Regards,

Eliot Lee

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
You're welcome.

Regards,

Eliot Lee

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Thanks, I did improve the add.cgi code to state only:
"if (@db_referers) {"

Lots of the mods looked like they may get in the way of sincere visitors using add.cgi

So far, just that little change in the add.cgi seems to be doing the trick.

Was there a certain mod you had in mind as a logical next step?

-Thanks,
Tim

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Again...please search more for relevant Threads...I have posted suggestions both in the Links 2.0 Customization and Perl/CGI forums over the past year. I really do not want to have to repeat myself...sorry.

Regards,

Eliot Lee

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Sorry, just noticed you added the info about when you were using Links 2.0
- good idea on the multiple stages of adding links. I may try something like that too. My main goal right now is to use mods like this that do not mess with legitimate visitors.

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Sure, sounds good, I will check by the Perl/CGI forums too, I have not been by there yet.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

- Tim

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
I too have been just hit by this group so this thread is timeley.
Thanks
Stevo

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Thanks for the note, I knew there would be others out there that had been hit by them too.

I found the spammer (http://www.searchup.de/promo-ten/maschinen.html) by just checking my referrers in my thecounter.com account (java counter I have on all my pages).

note: I check often to find things just like this. Over the last month I have found 3 sites that took a flash file of mine off Flashkit.com and passed it off as their own work on their site. All someone has to do is click once from their site and thecounter puts it in my "last 30 referrers". This last week I have been waiting to find one from germany (.de) and yesterday I got him.

And to answer your other question,

In add.cgi, under the sub process_form,

replace:
# Check the referer.
if (@db_referers and $ENV{'HTTP_REFERER'}) {

with:
# Check the referrer.
if (@db_referers) {


- I found this tip somewhere in the forums last night. So far today, Saturday, I have not received any from germany, time will tell if it did the trick. I am also looking into a staggered add format, off of inspiration from Anthro. My wife speaks German, so she is going to help me figure their site out and if there are any additional steps I can take, maybe some just to piss them off too, no, that would be childish. ;>}

PS, I am posting this in the thread too, might be helpful for others too?

Tim
support@ezFriend.com

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
I too just got hit by them ... buggers. I found also that most of my submissions are coming from 195.20.225.110

They are auto submitting somehow - anyone got any idea on how they are doing it?

Anyway I will try your @db_referers fix and let you know if I get hit again.

Skahoo

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
My site is on the German "hit list" I have dug up an email address on the site which is webmaster@net-soft.de I have written them asking to be removed from their site. I hope someone there can read english. For good measure is there someone out there who could compose a german language threat...er I mean request that affected persons may want to use??

Stevo

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Well, if you really need help with translating your request/threat/demand into German, email me, I could lend you a hand...

Thomas
http://www.japanreference.com
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Re: German spammers? In reply to
I got hit (yesterday and today) from the Germans! If anyone forms a union to get back at these people... let me in!

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Update: 2 days have passed and I have tested this fix against their site, my site is now safe from the German spammers at http://www.searchup.de/promo-ten/maschinen.html

Here are the 2 steps that at least presently, will keep the German spam machine from getting to you.

1)In ADD.CGI, under the sub process_form,

replace:
# Check the referer.
if (@db_referers and $ENV{'HTTP_REFERER'}) {

with:
# Check the referrer.
if (@db_referers) {

2) In LINKS.CFG at the Referers area
Add your domain, with single quotes as shown below. This will tell links2.0 to only accept submissions from your domain, ie. the add.cgi at your site:

# Referers -- which hosts are allowed to add to your database.
@db_referers = ('ezfriend.com','www.ezfriend.com','64.176.68.173');


------------------------

These two fixes I found in the forum and have worked for me, so hopefully they will work for your sites too.

Good luck,

Tim
support@ezfriend.com

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Checking out a few of those sites (about 20 of them) from the first couple blocks of links, it seems that nearly all of them are Links 2.0 or Links SQL sites, with a few exceptions (Yahoo, Lycos, etc.). I bet they lifted the links right out of the resource center... At least I'm not in there.... yet Smile.

--Drew
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Re: German spammers? In reply to
That fixed em right up! Suffer in ya jocks spamheads!

Skahoo! :)

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
This may be a low tech solution but it has "voluntarily" stopped all further postings to my particular site. I started to return each and every posting directly to the 2 email addresses that appeared in my submission info which are:webmaster@webnaut.de and webmaster@net-soft.de plus I forwarded a complaint to this address: abuse@dj-ufk.de This may be a "low tech" and perhaps a temporary solution but it has stopped all further submissions to my site. My site info as does others still appears at this address...check to see if you are there: http://www.searchup.de/promo-ten/maschinen.html

Stevo

Now to explore the forums for a more permanent solution.........

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U like his tel number? In reply to
It +49-721-9891305

Give him a call and tell him to take out your site. I've talked to his dad, he was very angry about his son :)

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Re: German spammers? In reply to
I didn't like having to have an allow list for people who could post, I prefer having a ban list to limit people who can post, so I added a new variable to my links.cfg file:

@db_ban = ('net-soft.ne','195.20.225.110','searchup.de','dj-ufk.de',webnaut.de');

and then changed my add.cgi to read (instead of @db_referrers everyone is taking about):

if (@db_ban) {
$found=0;
foreach (@db_ban) {
$ENV{'HTTP_REFERER'} =~ /$_/i and $found++ and last;
}

Now I can choose people to ban instead of people to allow. Much more convienient.

Hope this helps,

Michael


- A computer without Microsoft is like a cake without Mustard -unknown
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Re: German spammers? In reply to
found 2 little errors:

1) 'net-soft.ne' must be 'net-soft.de'
2) webnaut.de' must be 'webnaut.de'



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Re: German spammers? In reply to
Well, I have implemented your hack, but it gives me the "Auto submission blabla" error msg whenever I try to add any site, banned or not.

Thomas
http://www.japanreference.com
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Re: German spammers!!! In reply to
Transmit the following letter to the Webmaster and the problem iseliminated. Sorry my English, I speaks German :-) Greeting from Switzerland

---
Guten Tag

nehmen Sie "name your website" (www.yourdomain.com) unverzüglich von der Liste. Sollten nach einer Reaktionszeit von 2 Tagen immer noch Seitenanmeldungen von searchup.ch eintreffen, sind wir gezwungen rechtliche Schritte gegen Sie vorzunehmen.

Mit freundlichen Grüssen
"your name"
---

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