Return of the September Spammer Simpletons

[DerVVulfman]

Dear Members,

You may recall that nearly a year ago in September, our community forum was hacked. And upon following that, we had a migration of roughly five hundred accounts, all of which of shady sources. Discovering this, every account created as of that hack was examined thoroughly finding the use of throwaway or disposable eMail addresses, the use of TOR proxies, and confirmation whether their IP all originated from known spam sources.  

Obviously, those that failed this checked were banned while innocents were clearly left untouched.

Well, this past week had roughly sixty of the offending five-hundred had returned. It isn't that they could do anything other than bear witness to our forum's 'no-permission' page that states TOR Proxies and disposable eMails are forbidden... in over twenty different languages.

Now, its one thing to have banned known spammers.  For me, its another to let them know that they are not welcome at all.  And for that, I went and personally changed the username and eMail addresses under their accounts to something that would be relatively impossible to figure out. As to the reason that the eMail addresses within their profiles were changed with their passwords was to prevent the use of the forum's 'Lost Password' feature to take effect.

Passwords were about as annoyingly long as: Your body is sagging a bit. The deterioration of your muscles definitely affects your ability to fight. It also affects your visual psychological tactics, this a statement comically taken from Tenchi Muyo OVA.  If anyone could figure that out, power to them. 

So the effort to keep the board completely spam-free is still ongoing, but worth the effort.

Happy gaming!

[DerVVulfman]

Yes, dear members.  It is I noting that... once again... the Simpleton Spammers made an effort to return.  I only popped in at work to look, and found roughly thirty more today.  This is a cutaway from the Online Today list, removing innocent members.... and I added the registration dates of these simpletons.

Time shown based on EST


Isn't it funny how they always seem to appear, in an exacting order based upon the registration date?

At this point, I believe nearly 1/5th of the 500 have attempted to come back the past two weeks.  And perhaps 1/5th some time ago that I handled before this.  I would estimate that almost half these accounts are now going to be ... entertaining ... for the spammers as I've been changing their passwords and eMails on these idiotic returns.

[DerVVulfman]

Yes, dear friends.   They're trying to return...  seventeen having their passwords and eMails changed in the few hours I was online.  Heck, most were just in the few hours I was online and I changed them as they appeared.

Again, I have a cutaway from the Online Today list, removing innocent members... but I didn't add the September registration dates this time.