Pickles245 Posted January 27, 2022 Posted January 27, 2022 Oh boy... the security/captcha is horrible. First it askes for question you have to google to get the answer for. Then when you put the right answer in, it says you got the answer wrong. Had to try like 25 times for it to accept my answer as correct just to create an account. phatbassanchor and orange2217 1 1
r3xp0p Posted January 27, 2022 Posted January 27, 2022 Same, I have no idea what carbonated drink is supposed to contain prune juice. What the heck kind of questions is that? Fortunately, I got a Skyrim question the next time so could answer. orange2217 and phatbassanchor 1 1
phatbassanchor Posted January 27, 2022 Posted January 27, 2022 Welcome aboard, new friends You have successfully passed the audition. Hahaha Kidding... I've been here for a while now and had nearly forgotten what a royal PITA it was to get logged in that very first time! Ugh! I actually knew the answers to the questions I was asked... by my third attempt... yet, I still confirmed my answers on google just to make sure as I did not want to repeat the process again for a fourth time. I get it. Good news is that you only have to do it once. The questions are banal and CAPTCHA is ridiculous. The images are so fuzzy and pixelated that it's hard to tell a bus from a train or a boat from a plane! "Click on the images of a bicycle" it said once... WTF? Is that a bicycle or a motorcycle? I cannot honestly tell them apart from this awful image! So yes, we have all been there, done that and fortunately not doing it again... unlike Nexus who shoots me into a CAPTCHA screen just to edit a single word of one of my PM comments. You won't see any more of that now. So, welcome to the forums! There are lots of cool folks, cool mods, interesting conversations and helpful topics too. Enjoy and adventure ever on new friends, Phat PS: A couple of my characters dropped by to say, "cheers!" lmstearn 1
lmstearn Posted January 27, 2022 Posted January 27, 2022 What I don't understand is why the Captcha folk don't think a hostile robot couldn't extract the text of the question and Google its own answer! The Siren and phatbassanchor 1 1
phatbassanchor Posted January 27, 2022 Posted January 27, 2022 2 minutes ago, lmstearn said: What I don't understand is why the Captcha folk don't think a hostile robot couldn't extract the text of the question and Google its own answer! Damned smart @$$ bots! Hahaha Pretty sure they are attempting to overtake the planet... hmmm... maybe they have! I'm with you brother Adventure ever on, Phat
Arthmoor Posted January 27, 2022 Posted January 27, 2022 Well so far it seems to work pretty well. Compared to other sites we get a very small number of actual bots and every question in the arsenal can be easily Googled. phatbassanchor 1
Lefty Scaevola Posted January 29, 2022 Posted January 29, 2022 Yuummm, Dr Pepper 10, the magic elixir that keeps my undead flesh from dropping off. lmstearn 1
tangylion Posted March 26, 2022 Posted March 26, 2022 I succeeded in getting thru but now the site keeps telling me my password is wrong but only on my laptop. I can get on every time on my phone. Wth is with that?
Lefty Scaevola Posted March 27, 2022 Posted March 27, 2022 maybe a setting on your laptop keyboard changing a key used in your password?
lmstearn Posted March 27, 2022 Posted March 27, 2022 5 hours ago, tangylion said: I succeeded in getting thru but now the site keeps telling me my password is wrong but only on my laptop. I can get on every time on my phone. Wth is with that? Do you use a password manager? Does the same thing happen after resetting the password?
lmstearn Posted March 28, 2022 Posted March 28, 2022 Do you use Chrome? This is the link to passwords to paste in the url box: chrome://settings/passwords Type in afkmods in the Search Passwords box on the top right to find the record where it can be changed. Here's mine: Similar kind of process with other browsers. Also check the international settings for input keyboard is consistent with that of the phone, or at least US, else there may be weird stuff going on with "@" symbols and the like in the password.
Shadowblade Posted December 20, 2022 Posted December 20, 2022 I'm not sure if signing up is too difficult. I had to reset my password and click on images that had butterflies. But I had to do it twice, so were some of those in the first attempt actually moths? But, if anything, it might be too easy to sign up. Yesterday, I got 150 spam notifications by e-mail of new posts, and all for bogus airline things. Today, I got almost 500. I'm not sure where to report it, so I thought I'd start here. But how do I stop this from happening, short of setting my account to receive no notifications of new posts? Cheers!
Sigurð Stormhand Posted December 20, 2022 Posted December 20, 2022 We're aware of the issue with the bots, it's not entirely clear how they're getting through at the moment. The arduous signup is supposed to prevent this.
Shadowblade Posted December 20, 2022 Posted December 20, 2022 (edited) 3 minutes ago, Sigurð Stormhand said: We're aware of the issue with the bots, it's not entirely clear how they're getting through at the moment. The arduous signup is supposed to prevent this. That's what I figured. Ah, well, thanks for the reply. I'll leave it a few more days. Deleting 500 spam e-mails is not all that time consuming. Cheers! Edited December 20, 2022 by Shadowblade Edited for tyops
Arthmoor Posted December 20, 2022 Posted December 20, 2022 Also to clarify, the butterflies thing is the result of switching captcha systems to try and put a stop to all this. I don't have high confidence that it'll actually work, but it was worth a shot based on an IPB support topic from June 2022.
Pseron Wyrd Posted December 21, 2022 Posted December 21, 2022 My heart goes out to the admins and moderating team here. We went through this with Bethesda's forums back in 2017. For a year or so we were hit by 1,000 to 15000 (even occasionally 2,000) Koream spam posts a night. They began about 6:00 PM pacific time and tapered off around 4:00 AM. The forums had no "batch move" feature so we had to manually move each thread to Trash by hand, one at a time. That was fun. By the time we had cleared one forum of spam it was not unusual to find another forum filling up. This, in addition to regular moderating responsibilities. It was brutal. I feel for you all. Uncus 1
Shadowblade Posted December 22, 2022 Posted December 22, 2022 But why do they do it? They must know that no one is even going to read their mass spam barrage, much less actually part with money based on the content, which no one will read anyway? I won't even read a web page if a banner pops up saying "We care about your privacy!" No you don't, you care about my data, and logging what I do, where I go and what sites I visit, so you can spam me with crap "personalised adverts" that will hit my AdBlock anyway! So I just shut the page on sight. If the banner says something else, like "We use cookies to improve your experience", if it's fast and simple to REJECT ALL, then I'll do that. If it takes more than 3 seconds, I just close the page. Stuff them. Years ago, before AdBlock, I bought a washing machine. Then I was spammed with e-mail ads for... a washing machine! Not even something I might actually want, like a tumble dryer! I'd JUST bought a washing machine, what kind of imbecile thinks I would want to buy another one the same week? Anyway, I just logged in and have another 500 to delete!
Arthmoor Posted December 22, 2022 Posted December 22, 2022 Whatever the reason is they do it, they wouldn't if it wasn't effective. Even if the spam is only briefly visible, if it's there when Googlebot happens by, it adds to their page cred. All it takes is a tiny percentage of people to respond to such things. Botnets require little to no effort to maintain once they're up.
smr1957 Posted December 22, 2022 Posted December 22, 2022 I posted this in your status post, Arthmoor, but I'll repost here. "I was just wondering- the signup is meant to deter bots - but with the proliferation of airline scams and spam being posted, maybe it is not bots doing the signing up and posting, but actual people - in which case the signup deterrence's are not going to work - and that would tend to explain the current situation." Certainly, that would go a long way to explain the ease with which these accounts are being created. Perhaps, as I posted on my status about this spam, a "cool down" period between when a person creates their account, and when they are allowed to post would be in order. This would help deter spammers who are actual people and not bots from posting here, as those who do are not likely to want to waste their own time having to return to any site before they can post their spam. And if they are bots somehow getting through, the cool down period would also help to deter them, as well, to some extent.
lmstearn Posted December 23, 2022 Posted December 23, 2022 Could be folks doing it, but as the spams are populating Status Updates and General Discussion only, and because of their similar content,and large numbers, it's likely a bot. It's evident they have AI on the Captcha system, so Captcha have to up their game, without make it hell for the genuine new users.
Scythe Bearer Posted December 23, 2022 Posted December 23, 2022 I think that sign up should be made harder, with email and cellular verification, a blood test, a urine test and three photo IDs. Also require a completed application, a CV/Resume, a recent W2/P60/PAYG/T4/Gensen-Choshu-Hyo, and a written recommendation from someone who is already on the site. Further, a written essay describing why someone should be allowed onto the site must be stapled to a Certificate of Mental Competency and submitted by snail mail to an address to be determined later. No less than three in face, personal interviews should be required; one with the moderators, one with recently submitting mod authors, and one with randomly selected members. Finally, each new member must be required to purchase and submit a US$10,000.00 bond from a certified bonding agency, said bond to be forfeit if they complain about the signup process. That should keep the damned bots at bay. smr1957 and lmstearn 2
smr1957 Posted December 23, 2022 Posted December 23, 2022 49 minutes ago, Scythe Bearer said: I think that sign up should be made harder, with email and cellular verification, a blood test, a urine test and three photo IDs. Also require a completed application, a CV/Resume, a recent W2/P60/PAYG/T4/Gensen-Choshu-Hyo, and a written recommendation from someone who is already on the site. Further, a written essay describing why someone should be allowed onto the site must be stapled to a Certificate of Mental Competency and submitted by snail mail to an address to be determined later. No less than three in face, personal interviews should be required; one with the moderators, one with recently submitting mod authors, and one with randomly selected members. Finally, each new member must be required to purchase and submit a US$10,000.00 bond from a certified bonding agency, said bond to be forfeit if they complain about the signup process. That should keep the damned bots at bay. Heck, even Sheson used to ask for your first born!
Hana Posted December 23, 2022 Posted December 23, 2022 Since this was an old topic and the issue is currently being addressed I'm going to go ahead and close it.
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