First off I would like to enlist a corps of people willing enough to tract down individuals who create computer spamming programs. Then we can send them to the rack.


But until that occurs. I am shocked, and quite frankly offended by a recent forum thread posted by a spam-bot depicting pornography and the links *uncensored mind you*.

I know that you, Mr. Robert and Mr. Chris, have a life outside this website. And we users can never thank you enough for a website like this. But is there someway of implementing stricter forum security? Like a sign in for every post, and visible keycode text box sign in?

This forum has been so far so good. But I fear that those damn individuals who program the spambots will always find a new way to defeat the security. (Thats where my little army of irrate people come in...corporal punishment is always a good idea ). And eventually someday the infestation will be so great that the battle will be a losing one.

I say this because not all of us are using their own computers. Children, and those who are at work may be "caught" (although 100% innocent) at the wrong moment because of spambots.

Thank you dearly
-JG

Good lord! Those spammers should be tarred and feathered, boiled in thier own pudding, put to the rack, hung, drawn and quartered and beheaded.

But seriously, if Robert or Chris need a moderator, I volunteer.

I too. Everyone can trust me and my wrath.

We are having extreme problems with spammers and it would have been worse if we did not use visual confirmation. Chris (somtimes me but mostly Chris) removes users who are likely spammers every day. Also, we remove many topics (I just removed one) which is spam in one way or the other.

We discuss to remove the possibility for automatic registration (we have to confirm each registration) and other actions and I will also raise the question about moderators.

I really hate spammers myself and perhaps get 30-50 spam emails every day. Do not let these bastards win!

Porn on the Internet My gosh, what is the world coming to

I'll have you know that I remove spammers from the forum several times every day. And their postings, if they have any. I must have missed this one, as I was busy recording yesterday and my Internet was inoperable. If any of you finds a strange post, please notify me or Robert by PM or email (cbreemer@hotmail.com). Please mention the details, as I can not find this particular post anywhere !? Perhaps Robert has already trashed it.

We have been taking several measures against phony registrations but none seem to deter them. We get about one or two dozen new 'members' each day, of which I remove, say, 1 out of 4 straight away. But unless they give themselves away by their personal data, it is very hard to see if the are real or not. I believe that more than half of our registered members may be fake. And once someone has registered, nothing can stop them from posting. It is a pest we have live which best as we can.

No matter how many moderators we have, something will slip through occasionally. Can't be helped.

what about forced personal bios? hmmm maybe that would not work. Just an idea.

Not sure whether it would "work". We have no time (and neither would you) to go through dozens of these things every day, trying to find out if they are real or not. Yes we could probably weedle out the phonies that way but it would take tooo much time.

Here is a thought on how to weed out potential spammers who try to join the Piano Society.

In the registration form, would it be possible to incorporate a question that ANY pianist would know that potential spammers would not know?

For example: How many sharps are there in the key signature of G major? (Better yet, how many flats are there in the key signature of G major?)


Cheers,

Joe

Good thinking. Let them do some homework before they get here and pass a little 'exam'. Perhaps even 3 questions from different fields of music. Anyone who is serious about music should have no problems with that. Though of course the spammers can also get these answers easily (as they should be too difficult), program it it their bots and share it with each other, so we'd need to change this on a regular basis. And it would need to be automatically checked otherwise we need to manually go thru dozens of registration forms each day (perhaps hundreds a day if this trend continues).

It is an attractive idea, but I fear it will be a lot of (recurring) work and still not be foolproof. Probably far more work than checking a couple of times a day and throw them out - however brain-numbing that may be.

But we do appreciate each and every creative idea, thanks for bringing it up.

In light of Joe's comment:

An exam would be helpful. But I see that it would be hard to keep up with having new combinations of answers and questions.

It is a good idea neverthless.


I still am in favor of a box with a series of letters and numbers and symbols with shaded and a texture weaved around them. and a statement "please type in what you see" as a safeguard.

But all I can say is that I see very few spammers posting (maybe it is because they are deleted right away). Overall there is no problem. No major cracks and flooding of the forum. But just in case that happens, I hope every one brought their snorkle along.


Thank you.
-JG

But Juuf, as already explained once or twice, we already have that. And it hardly seems to work anymore. Looks like many spambots have no problem with it, and actually many 'bots' are actually live people (often in 3rd world countries) who do this stuff for money - which explains the sometimes idiotic things you see in the personal info. Like, Interests: gurls that kind of stuff.

Perhaps you could go out and shoot them all ?

That's funny! Yes, I vote that Juuf use those guns we saw for a good purpose.
-Nicole in Canada

Yes I have. I did that as soon as I saw it.