Thou 2012 arrived!And it shall rain spam for 40 days&nights!

[Durabys]

We have a "little" problem.

Yes the problem is called spam, spammers and, yes, we have a thread already about it. But what kinds of horror will 2012 bring in regards to spam and spammers? It is too bad to even think about it!

Or we could try to think about it together.

... now, discuss!

[Karst45]

*Shove a wet cloth on Durabys face*

Do that smell like chloroform?

*gently put him down on the ground*


shhhh everything will be fine! Were you go there wont be any spammer!

[Trantor]

Thought this thread was spam, too...

[Arioch]

Well, the number of spam posts increased significantly with the new year, but I would guess this was due to increased effort rather than improved spamming technique.

I'm guessing that the way they defeat the CAPTCHA is to have humans solve it. I've seen MP3 download sites that ask the user to solve a CAPTCHA before downloading each MP3... dollars to donuts bets that this CAPTCHA is being pulled from a third-party site like mine, and the MP3 site owners are selling the solution to spammers.

The only solution I can think of is to code a custom CAPTCHA for the site. Which I thought was a ridiculous idea before I said it out loud... hmmm...

[Absalom]

Thought this thread was spam, too...

That would have been it's own "special" kind of awesome .

The only solution I can think of is to code a custom CAPTCHA for the site. Which I thought was a ridiculous idea before I said it out loud... hmmm...

The only things I would worry about are copyrights (though I hope noone would press against non-commercial, private reimplementations), and keeping the CAPTCHA style up-to-date.

[fredgiblet]

The only solution I can think of is to code a custom CAPTCHA for the site. Which I thought was a ridiculous idea before I said it out loud... hmmm...

"Identify this character"

[Arioch]

The only things I would worry about are copyrights (though I hope noone would press against non-commercial, private reimplementations), and keeping the CAPTCHA style up-to-date.

I don't see how there would be a copyright issue... the whole point of providing a plugin API is so that you can write your own plugins. And an Outsider CAPTCHA wouldn't copy any existing software... as fredge suggested, it would be a simple quiz that some random MP3 downloading person wouldn't know the answer to.

I haven't even looked at the phpBB API's, I'm justing thinking out loud.

The other nice thing about a site-specific test is that you can put verbiage on it that makes it clear to the user that if they're seeing it and not on the Outsider/Well of Souls site, then the site they ARE on is run by a bunch of crooks.

[javcs]

The only solution I can think of is to code a custom CAPTCHA for the site. Which I thought was a ridiculous idea before I said it out loud... hmmm...

"Identify this character"

That would work fairly well.
I'm probably not the only person who's ever messed up doing a CAPTCHA, and an "identify this character" would be trivial for readers to get right.

[Durabys]

The only solution I can think of is to code a custom CAPTCHA for the site. Which I thought was a ridiculous idea before I said it out loud... hmmm...

"Identify this character"

Brilliant idea!

[fredgiblet]

That would work fairly well.
I'm probably not the only person who's ever messed up doing a CAPTCHA, and an "identify this character" would be trivial for readers to get right.

The real problem with that is variety and a small detriment to new users.

Also

Them: "Our spam will blot out the sun!"
Us: "Then we shall ban in the shade"

[Count Casimir]

That would work fairly well.
I'm probably not the only person who's ever messed up doing a CAPTCHA, and an "identify this character" would be trivial for readers to get right.

The real problem with that is variety and a small detriment to new users.

Also

Them: "Our spam will blot out the sun!"
Us: "Then we shall ban in the shade"

Huzzah!

[Karst45]

The only solution I can think of is to code a custom CAPTCHA for the site. Which I thought was a ridiculous idea before I said it out loud... hmmm...

"Identify this character"

That would work fairly well.
I'm probably not the only person who's ever messed up doing a CAPTCHA, and an "identify this character" would be trivial for readers to get right.

yeah this idea came up a lots of time when discussing a solution to the spam.

I see 2 reason why this would be appropriate.

First: People who join the forum do it because they are interested in the comic. If they are interested in the comic they probably have read it before trying to join the forum. so name should be fresh in their memory. if not they will probably try to browse the site again to find it.

second: seem quite easy to do for a lots of possible combination. A section with a random picture (that rotate at each try) and a case were the name must be entered. So they must enter the name right

Negative point is that since some character have simple name a simple "dictionary" code breaker could do it with a lots of time.

[Fotiadis_110]

I GOT IT!

Do script which uses questions written into pictures (with all the squiggles and such to confuse the heck out of bots, or even randomised characters surrounding the question), asking us to use words from the comics themselves

Thus: no new needed drawings or Comic delaying additional work getting this stuff functional.

And ofc, if the 'question pic' is confusing, you can always reload.
as long as 90% are workable, three reloads will set 99.9% of users right

The process of making question pictures can be automated through any number of paths (or coded easily by some of the helpful coders on the forum).
AND it gives us an excuse to go back and revisit the comics when we register

[Karst45]

Thus: no new needed drawings or Comic delaying additional work getting this stuff functional.

well i tough of using ether concept art or just taking picture of character already seen in the comic (aka cut the face from the comic itself)

[Fotiadis_110]

problem is there is only a finite batch of concept art, and Loroi do look rather similar.

It would require more work creating enough variety in the pictures to result in a functional script, and any spammer who wants to get in can program a tool to do a picture comparison

Using the text of the comic on the other hand would require the guy to SPECIFICALLY design the thing to work for this site, which would certainly get our attention and encourage us to tell the poor guy to just hang out with us because he's obviously pretty good at scripting ^_^

[Mjolnir]

Do script which uses questions written into pictures (with all the squiggles and such to confuse the heck out of bots, or even randomised characters surrounding the question), asking us to use words from the comics themselves :P

Don't need to do anything with trying to obscure things from OCR software or embedding questions in pictures, just ask questions about the comic. A bot's not going to answer those even if it can read them, and if phrased right, neither will someone from some third party site who doesn't know the context. (How many guards were visible on page 32? Page 32 of what?)

[Michael]

can we make the CAPTCHA Outsider based? that way a bot would have to read the comic (is that possible?)

[Overkill Engine]

Just remember; it doesn't HAVE to work perfectly, it just has to work well enough to make it too much effort to be worth circumventing.

[Arioch]

There's no way spammer is going to code a special workaround just to get into this forum.

[Michael]

maby they really like Outsider?