The spam is back. At around 6:00 am EST the forum was completely taken over. So they found a loophole in the system installed since each and everyone of the posts had a link included in it.

I'm not interested in having moderating privileges but I would like to help in any way that I can. Since I live in a different time zone I might just be in a position to clear the board before you all wake up.

I think it takes more than moderators or continual clearing to get rid of this lot. Its amazing. This will take some time to deal with.

How very frustrating. What a bunch of idiots these people are. I am sure there can't be that much return for their efforts. Sigh.

OMG...I thought it was just the mods that were able to see this crap!!! This is horrible and Jeanette is right it will take awhile to finish it all.....

Well I've just deleted about 150 of the messages. They are everywhere, embedded in posts as well as in posts of their own.

I'm sure other mods will delete more as they appear, for now I have to get back to work.

Jeanette your doing a great job hun!! I just deleted a bunch like that as well..spammers posting in spammers post...was like wth???? LOL it is truely amazing how some people choose to spend their quality time isn't it?

Just incase ya'll are wondering...I haven't completely disappeared off of the face of the planet. I do stop in and delete @#$%$%$$ spam, but I still have a full house and art of my own to work on and an increase in hours at my night job...this doesn't leave me alot of time to help out with drawing problems...I'm trying to make time to help more so bare with me.

{{{Hugs}}}to you all,
Laura

Well dang.

Right now only mods can see the first 10 spam messages by each of the new posters.

Farfallina - do you by any chance remember the name of the poster(s) you saw?

The logs are showing that none of the spammers made it to the general public... which is disturbing.

Not off hand, but I might still have the page in cache.. I'll see what I can do

Admin...actually a few saw spam earlier cause I had like 4 or 5 reports in my pm box..if that helps also.

Back to say that I'm very sorry but I must have closed the tab I had using when I was seeing all the spam.

All I can say is that at the time I started this thread about two hours ago, the whole of the first page of the General Discussion Index was taken up by spam. I checked out several of them and they all had links showing in their posts.

So I suppose the fraus I am referring to in this thread is that they have found out that once they make their tenth post the link will be visible to everyone so they are obviously merely intensifying their efforts. There is really nothing I can suggest beyond disallowing links completely for people who have not been regular posters for a number of weeks or even months.

It's sad but there really is hardly anything else that can be done. Members obviously wish to have a clean and relevant environment and moderators can't spend all their time cleaning up! Drastic situations call for drastic solutions.

Ummm Admin...I think whoever is posting the spam is doing as Rose suggested and saw that after so many post they will be be available for all to see. I just deleted one that had 15 post under their name. Isn't there a way to disable links on Drawspace period and just ask members to type a link they would suggest for someone to visit?

Admohatard93 is the only one I saw this morning that I can still see. But I did see a ton of it this morning.

Absterterjoted1 - is still showing too.

Absterjoted1..has 25 post that they have made...

I don't mean to sound negative but it seems that only new members are discouraged from posting links. ;-)

Can these older members who continute to post spam be banded? ;-)

Admin, these are not new posters. The same names cropped up as were posting previously before measures were taken to stop them.

Yes, there are likely some new ones and always will be, but I remember names and most were the same.

As for allowing links, I'm in favour of eliminating it , at least as a stopgap measure til more security is in place. How do other forums stop this? Do we know?

I don't think I understand what you mean Bob. I referred to new members because that is the solution Admin had found useful at the time they took the measures they did.

I can't in all honesty say that I have ever seen old members posting spam - have you?

now I can see them too
THEY ARE EWERYWHERE
And I can't do anything to help

I think completely disabling links is a good idea.

I may be inclined to agree with you Sharky. The only difficulty I see is when anyone is quoting another site for educational purposes. Not posting a link to the site might be seen as unethical. It would also make it problematic for members to share interesting sites with everyone here. And the third reason would be needing to refer to past threads in this forum itself. Prohibiting all links is very crippling believe me.

These spammers don't take no for an answer do they. The ones appearing now all have a minimum of 14 posts to their name in the space of probably as many minutes from registering.

Sorry I have had no internet for the past two days we had a storm .

I deleted spam when I came in this morning .. it was everywhere ....is it members ? .

No, not preventing them from posting the site, just the hyperlink. I can tell you all day long what they're doing over at smalltownbiglife.com without hyperlinking it. If you choose, you can type that url into your address bar yourself. I have shared the information, I have given them the credit, you get to go explore it, and there's no way for the spammers to profit. It won't necessarily stop them from posting, but the links will be removed. They profit from "click-throughs".

These people need to be deleted from membership.
Bad members #1 through #20 are deleted. Thank you Admin.
These members all have 15 or more posts. When you check their posts they are not there. When you delete a post you also have to take away membership. I will give you more.
Paulette

Yes - you are right. I can see it now. So let's do it!

More bad members.
BM #21 through #40 are deleted.
These people have various start dates, many posts that have been deleted.
Admin. please check them out.
Paulette

Member #35 has done spam !!!! Paulette I think you hit on something ! awsome now all we need to do is get rid of them .
( scratching my head) how shall we go about this ....not any of them have galleries .

I just did an experiment to see if commenting in the galleries counts as a post. It does not. Therefore I believe all of these members are the ones you guys have been deleting (their posts) all along. They are not being dumped as members. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I am willing to keep looking for them if I know that they will be deleted as members.
Paulette

We're trying few options right now, i'll keep you posted.

This Joder who is downloading spam right now has been a member for 3 days. I am sure you must have blocked his posts already. But he still has membership.
Paulette

Still experimenting. Doing some... drastic things to the IPB code. I'll post here as soon as we learn anything.

Okay - quick update. The board now prevents new users from making posts with links. We'll try this for a while and see how it goes.

If anyone notices anything out of the ordinary please let me know. These were some quick-fixes and there's bound to be bugs.

I've added the following to the sign-up page (in bold and red at the top):

"When using the forums: New members will not be able to make posts containing links or place links in their signatures. Sorry for the inconvenience."


Paulette - thanks for those lists, I'm going to start digging into them now.

Hokay - 40 old-member-spammers gone.

Thanks a ton for that Paulette, it saved us a lot of time.

Now let's see how much spam we get tomorrow...

Wow so much work guys ...good on you !!!!

Spam patrol

sounds almost Monty Pythonish

Great work !!

Yeah Admin,
I'll give you another list when I can spend time looking.
Paulette

Bad members list,
BM #41 through #60 deleted

Paulette

Bad members list,

BM#61 through #80 deleted.

Paulette

Bad members list,
BM#81 through #100 deleted

Paulette

Bad member list,
BM#101 through #120 deleted.


Paulette

Paulette, You Go Girl!!! You so rock!!! I never even thought of going through the members gallery and searching for the names that way. I swear probably more than half of the members on drawspace are spammers after looking through it earlier. Keep of the great work and if you would like some help let me know for tomorrow morning where you left off and I can keep going for you.

Deleted, deleted, deleted, and deleted.

Once again, thank you for this work Paulette

Bad Members list,
BM#121 through #140 gone!


Paulette

Bad members list,
BM#141 through #160 deleted!

Paulette

Bad member list,
BM#161 through #180 vanquished!

Paulette

Where are you getting all these from Paulette? These are all individuals with minimal numbers of posts?

If these numbers keep growing, it seems a high proportion of the 'membership' are spammers. Not a good thought.

Jeanette,
I don't think it is as bad as this looks. We got hit real bad for a couple of weeks and this reflects that. I think we will still see some but as soon as they post we can delete membership and get rid of them.
All Moderaters,
If you delete spam, Admin will need to know who it was so they can take away membership. Once they are weeded out. Not being able to give links might stop them from wanting to come back.
Paulette

If legitimate members have legitimate links they can still post them as they have been doing and just say copy and paste into browser address bar, right? Or will this cause them not to post at all?

For example Alina posted a link to a source photo she wanted help in drawing. She couldn't post it, but she sent it to me email.

Also, I suspect that some people have a phobia for links. If we are going to search the Internet we all need anti-virus software to protect us so it is safe to click on links. How else can we surf if we can't click on links?

ack

You kiddies are really impressive.. Way to go. We are all so proud of you and your hard work..

121 - 180 deleted. And now I have to buy a new mouse.

I have a only 2 spams in the filter this morning - this may actually be working