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Problems with porn

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
No, not a thread describing my personal life, but rather a chance to mention what's happening with recent porn spam.

It now seems clear that someone is manually posting links to spyware filled porn referral sites, and they are doing this with spoofed ip addresses.

Although this is uncomfortable and unpleasant, and we are looking into possible solutions, I thought it would be worth explaining the principals upon which our website is based so that you might have a better understanding of what's restriciting our options in dealing with the problem.

TheSite.org is a website aimed at providing information and advice to young people, whether they have been long time members or simply first time posters.

As a principal we believe that posters should have the freedom to discuss whatever issue is concerning them, no matter how conventionally taboo, so word blocking isn't really an option.

They also shouldn't be forced to wait to ask for help, which may happen if we were to bring in any time delay on new posters, or manual verification of their accounts.

For this reason, and at this time, we believe that the damage done by one vile poster whose threads are quickly removed, shouldn't be allowed to damage the experience for all other posters; new or old.

So I'd ask for your understanding, if you see a dodgy thread resist the temptation to post in it (as this may only inflate the poster's sense of success), and simply report it, at which point we'll remove it.

I know this may not seem like an ideal solution but I won't see the principals of our service sacrificed to the behaviour of one individual.
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    While that's all fantastic, if you do have a problem with porn in your personal life Jim, we're here for you :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Don't post, you'll just inflate his.....problem :)

    I agree that words shouldn't be blocked btw.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    As I suggested in a post do word blocking in the urls not the post...

    If you have notice most of links posted have sexual words in them, a basic filter
    killing all link containing sexual word will reduce the amount...

    An other filter than would be good is one where it detect the number of space within the post as they alwasy make huge empty post to go with it...

    IP blacklist is also an option...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    yeah but if you blocked sexual words, what would happen to the sex forum?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There are far too many IPs for a an IP blacklist to work for random link spammers, surely?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    yeah but if you blocked sexual words, what would happen to the sex forum?

    sexual words in urls only...

    not on the post so the text isn't affected, but porn url do not work...

    or simply display them instead of making them clickable like others...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There are far too many IPs for a an IP blacklist to work for random link spammers, surely?

    Depends even if it's IP is not static we can block an ip range which
    is given to him...

    Also there is way around which I will not say, let's not inform spammers...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Depends even if it's IP is not static we can block an ip range which
    is given to him...

    Also there is way around which I will not say, let's not inform spammers...

    Yeah ofc if it's just one poster. But I mean it won't prevent other spammers coming later and doing their dirty work.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yeah ofc if it's just one poster. But I mean it won't prevent other spammers coming later and doing their dirty work.

    Yep the trouble with IP blacklist is that you have to keep tracking them and
    updating the list... Also here the trouble is not important enough to use such
    method that will create more admin...

    Killing porn urls is a solution that would be easier as it is just creating and setting up a filter...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You can't get rid of porn urls - lots of legimate articles from website such as our own would be blocked.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think the easiest method is still just to report the posts. As long as there are admins/mods on most of the time (which I assume there are?)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think the easiest method is still just to report the posts. As long as there are admins/mods on most of the time (which I assume there are?)

    Yep after all it's not like there is hundreds post everyday, it aint too bad so far...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jim V wrote:
    and they are doing this with spoofed ip addresses.
    spoofed or hijacked? I though you needed a session cookie to post, which would make spoofing pretty difficult.

    Would you rather receive just one report, or reports from as many users as you can?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Best bet would probably be a "maximum URL limit" on posts. Legitimate posts in here rarely contain more than 2-3 URLs, wheras porn links often have quite a few in the same post.

    Nothing to do with IPs works, as from my experience a spammer like this would rarely post from the same IP or even the same subnet more than once, and chances are it's just a legitimate user's hijacked PC anyway.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Mist wrote:
    Best bet would probably be a "maximum URL limit" on posts. Legitimate posts in here rarely contain more than 2-3 URLs, wheras porn links often have quite a few in the same post.
    Having worked inthe industry for sometime, I've learnt that whenever proposing anti spam measures, it is a good idea to consider the following

    1) will it cause problems for legitimate users?
    Yes, although not often

    2) what is the work around? how hard is it?
    post your links in more messages in smaller batches. Trivial

    3) if the work around is used, will things be better or worse than now?
    worse
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Could also allow links only after a number of posts only...
    I think most spammer just register and spam, making it so you can post urls
    after maybe 20 posts should slow them down...
    Not really worth posting 20 posts just to be able to send few urls...
    Also it's not like there is spam everyday, not sure it is worth doing anything for now...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    thats a good idea actually/
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    That was my idea :(
    I'd link you to it but the thread got deleted because of the porn ;)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    That was my idea :(
    I'd link you to it but the thread got deleted because of the porn ;)
    congratulations on your idea. :yippe:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    :p thanks
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    That was my idea :(
    I'd link you to it but the thread got deleted because of the porn ;)

    I'm sorry you had the idea first, didn't knew, wasn't
    trying to steal your thunder :)

    Please don't sue me for copyright fraud :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Suing? that would take actual effort. I have to go to the library today as it is, what do you think I am, not lazy? :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Suing? that would take actual effort. I have to go to the library today as it is, what do you think I am, not lazy? :p

    Ops, sorry for the insult, since you are in here I should have assume you are as lazy as the rest of us :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jim V wrote:
    So I'd ask for your understanding, if you see a dodgy thread resist the temptation to post in it (as this may only inflate the poster's sense of success), and simply report it, at which point we'll remove it.
    I'm delighted to see TheSite is taking a firm stance against this. But one piece of advice - I think you should put this in the Sex Board User Guide so that you don't have to keep reminding everyone of this rule.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    To be fair we'd like people to avoid posting in the threads - but we wouldn't consider it against the rules if they did, just undesirable.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jim V wrote:
    To be fair we'd like people to avoid posting in the threads - but we wouldn't consider it against the rules if they did, just undesirable.
    Well, just write that down instead - "please don't encourage spammers" or something similar.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Could also allow links only after a number of posts only...
    I think most spammer just register and spam, making it so you can post urls
    after maybe 20 posts should slow them down...
    Not really worth posting 20 posts just to be able to send few urls...
    Also it's not like there is spam everyday, not sure it is worth doing anything for now...
    Would they just post the addresses instead of the links if this was the case?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    yes
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    To be honest if someone is sad enough to actually sit and post the links themselves - rather than using an automated method which is generally easier to detect and stop - there's not a lot of methods that will pick up their spam without causing false positives.

    So you're left with manually fixing the stuff.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If someone reports it, do you think we should post in the thread just saying "reported" so you guys don't get 50 emails of "OMG pr0n spam in teh sexx forum!!!" from everyone who sees it?
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