[REMARK] please stop reporting people as spam bots :)

asked 2014-07-08 03:27:09 -0600

20029 ●16 ●82 ●207 http://stevenputtemans...

updated 2014-07-08 03:36:24 -0600

Dear Q&A forum users,

As parttime administrator of this forum, we are aware of the huge increase in spam bots crawling around our forum. We have passed on the notice to the openCV core developers who are going to take care of it in the near future by updating the AskBot version used and applying some suggested fixes.

In the meanwhile

Please delete or close down posts if a spambot occurs
You do not need to mark offensive

The marking gives us administrators a warning, which we used to block the users. However the system of the current Askbot is that buggy, making blocking of 20 accounts a day quite useless.

So please bare with us for some time, I will keep people up to date about the progress in this topic.

DEV forum topic: code.opencv.org/issues/3770

Kind regards,

Steven

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hey yea ;) , killed 7 today (and i's only 10:30)

berak ( 2014-07-08 03:33:05 -0600 )edit

Same here -_- 5 people deleted and blocked ... being patient is harsh :) when I came back from holiday week I had more than 75 reports...

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-07-08 03:35:55 -0600 )edit

yea, sorry about the reports, some of them were mine even. (hoped to nag alex or daniil with that, but it seems, you're the only one on that list, so - sockshot.)

berak ( 2014-07-08 03:37:51 -0600 )edit

Nah I am probably the only one responding to them for now :) We have done our jobs, Now lets wait and see. Still think some updates of this forum could be usefull like categories and stuff like that :)

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-07-08 03:39:30 -0600 )edit

Sorry about the report, it seems logical, but I haven't really thought of it ;-) Maybe you should update the FAQ (or it's done and I haven't read it…)

Mathieu Barnachon ( 2014-07-08 04:33:22 -0600 )edit

The FAQ needs a total workover :) I started the FAQ with simple instructions, but the last year has helped me to improve some stuff that should be there like general search methods and how people should better format topics or use the forum possibilities. Haven't got the time to update it now however...

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-07-08 04:45:11 -0600 )edit

@unxnut @all: Please delete any spam instead of closing it! In this way, it raises way fewer attention, thanks! Another problem is that I cannot delete those threads anymore (maybe a bug of the Q&A software).

Guanta ( 2014-07-08 07:31:36 -0600 )edit

@StevenPuttemans: Can you maybe write @unxnut an email/pm not to close spam but to delete it right away, thx.

Guanta ( 2014-07-12 05:26:44 -0600 )edit

@Guanta @StevenPuttemans: Will do.

unxnut ( 2014-07-12 07:37:55 -0600 )edit

@unxnut Thank you!

Guanta ( 2014-07-12 08:55:25 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-10-15 04:53:04 -0600

StevenPuttemans

20029 ●16 ●82 ●207 http://stevenputtemans...

Small update, contacted Alexander and some other core members (Vadim, Kirill, Maksim) again, and it seems they are going to try and fix this asap now. Will keep you guys up to date if they succeed!

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Thank you Steven, it's really time to do that, deleted 6 in the last three hours...

Guanta ( 2014-10-16 05:46:13 -0600 )edit

I know I know ... but the response was larger then previous. Lets hope a fix will be up soon.

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-10-16 06:25:42 -0600 )edit

If a resolution is not implemented by (some unspecified deadline), the People of the Anonymous OpenCV Answers Users will launch an army of spam-killer bots which will seek out and kill (delete) spams via the web interface under the auspice of the privileged account holders.

rwong ( 2014-10-18 06:01:27 -0600 )edit

Say wut? :D

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-10-18 14:00:31 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-11-08 07:55:09 -0600

StevenPuttemans

20029 ●16 ●82 ●207 http://stevenputtemans...

updated 2014-11-08 11:11:20 -0600

Like you can see the forum just got flood spammed. I succeeded in blocking all those bots but by now the have added more then 2000 topics. This is the best I can do with these limited mod powers. No way I am going to delete them manually. OpenCV needs to take care of its user base like requested several times... if not then I will have to back out on my commitments to this community.

Signed,

Steven

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There has to be a better way than killing these posts one by one. Can we ask for the return address when people sign up with the forum? At this moment, they continue to spam. I noticed that as I deleted some posts, more posts appeared from the same username.

unxnut ( 2014-11-08 09:30:04 -0600 )edit

Don't bother to delete, only blocking the accounts help. But when I blocked 30 of them, 20 signed up again. This is a targetted spam. Can only fix it by fixing the registration...

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-11-08 11:10:01 -0600 )edit

tHe poWeRFull InTeRCaSt lOvE MaRRiAge+91-9610891318 PrOBleM SoLuTiOn MOLvI JI will solve your website problems, too !!

cmon, folks, where is your humor in this ?

yep, removing those is no more doable by croudsourcing, must be like 1500+ now (though i 've seen someone trying to kill some), someone with shell access will have to sweat quite a bit over that, i guess.

in the meantime, let's lean back, take it in with a good spoon of schadenfreude even. regain the humor, the usual 50-100 suspects can stand a few days of downtime.

berak ( 2014-11-08 12:25:44 -0600 )edit

Nizhny Novgorod, we've got a problem ...

berak ( 2014-11-08 12:44:10 -0600 )edit

Haha nice!

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-11-08 12:53:59 -0600 )edit

Actually, click me and click me

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-11-08 13:04:05 -0600 )edit

Tell Itseez to backup the forum database, in case an irrecoverable damage occurs requiring completely dumping the Askbot platform and migrating to another one.

rwong ( 2014-11-08 14:55:00 -0600 )edit

@berak: I think I'll have a glass of pan galactic gargoblaster :-)

unxnut ( 2014-11-08 17:18:31 -0600 )edit

It seems it got quite solved. But same indian crap keeps popping up. Fingers crossed that the switch to a new host will be in the pipeline :)

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-11-09 07:38:42 -0600 )edit

I temporarily disabled local accounts and removed spam messages and users. But it doesn't solve our problem, because some percent of spam users use Google, Yahoo, OpenID accounts. So we should add some more features to filter spam. I think we should discuss it. I will send you separate email about it.

Yes, I started to work on new version on other hosting.

AlexanderShishkov ( 2014-11-09 08:20:59 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-07-19 01:56:00 -0600

rwong

1028 ●8 ●21

URGENT SUGGESTION

Please consider temporarily disable all non-OpenID new user creation.

It is quite apparent that spammers are using newly created accounts by manually passing the reCAPTCHA test. OpenID would require them to mass-register on someone else's service (many of them commercial), so this temporary measure would at least shift the burden on someone else.

This is of course bad etiquette, but it will buy some time before Itseez or OpenCV foundation can implement the AskBot upgrade.

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Like said, it has been passed to openCV devs, but keep in mind that OpenCV is not their payed job but on a spare time basis. So please do be patient together with us!

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-07-19 04:21:18 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-07-08 03:41:25 -0600

StevenPuttemans

20029 ●16 ●82 ●207 http://stevenputtemans...

The answer we got from Alexander Shishkov regarding the problem:

It is impossible in the current version of the Askbot engine. So we should update it before. But we also should transfer it from the current hosting to the another one, because on the current hosting we can't buy enough RAM for our application. So it is killed by hosting few times during a day. It works only because automatic scripts reboot it if site is down. It is not good situation, I understand your opinion. But right now, I don't have enough time, to transfer it and update. I will try to talk with my manager about it, maybe we can find time slot to do it in near future.

So as mentioned, they will look into it!

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