Forum woes

[bubba]

So do I.

This problem is by no means solved yet, but we're getting on top of it more now.

There is actually a solution that kills it dead - force users to log in with their (hidden) email address instead of with their username - that way the bots can never log them out unless they guess their email address, which is pretty unlikely. I'm keen to implement this but it's a decision that needs the approval of Toby and Simon and I think Toby's away at the moment or something.

For the record, since the new anti-spam measures were implemented we've now blocked 3080 IP address here and 3650 on ukb.

 

[rsch]

May be worth hearing that it's working fine from outside my normal network(s) - I'm a long way from home and using an unsecured hotel network where the ip address is bound to get blacklisted as soon as someone with a laptop riddled with viruses logs on - I'm told it's the only free, unsecured network in miles, so it has a certain appeal!

On my first attempt to access I got the questions, subsequently it's let me in immediately, so as far as I can tell from here, it's working as well as I could possibly expect 

 

[martinm]

Hey Bubba.

Just thought I'd let you know, I've not had a problem or a challenge today, as I've moved to a T-Mobile dongle. The O2 one was dropping out all day today. (Rubbish, though prob the signal strength in my area was the problem...)

Also thought I'd let you know that I've never, ever been logged out, if that might help at all... Keep up the good work, I'm sure we all appreciate it...

Regards, Mel.

 

[graham]

Interesting. It's logged me out twice this morning. Wholly bizarre the first time in that I appeared to be logged in and could move between threads but when I wanted to post, I was out.

 

[Maggot]

Same here. Reading threads fine, I only appeared logged out when I clicked on the "mark all as read" button to clear threads I'm not following.

 

[paul]

Sounds like you (Graham and Maggot) were logged out during your session. You can of course browse and read messages while logged out but cannot post nre messages nor mark any as "Read". Probably a 'bot' was trying you logon name while you were yourselves logged on and failing.

 

[dunc]

There is actually a solution that kills it dead - force users to log in with their (hidden) email address instead of with their username - that way the bots can never log them out unless they guess their email address, which is pretty unlikely. I'm keen to implement this but it's a decision that needs the approval of Toby and Simon and I think Toby's away at the moment or something.

For the record, since the new anti-spam measures were implemented we've now blocked 3080 IP address here and 3650 on ukb.

I think the email login method is the way forward, the new measures put in place have made a difference but they are still getting through, albeit to a lesser extent.

Until a significant majority of worldwide computer (internet) users open their eyes to security, this or similar problems will always exist... Something so simple that causes so much trouble!