Spam in the wiki?

Hi!

It looks like there are some wiki pages which are spammed.
Like this one:
[objects.reprap.org]

and this one:
[objects.reprap.org]

and this:
[objects.reprap.org]

It seems, that all the objects.reprap.org is infected:
[objects.reprap.org]

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2007 08:32AM by khiraly.

Hi,

Kr1Kd6 is spamming since beginning of June, could an admin ban this bot?

Alex

Okay. Just banning Kr1Kd6 is insufficient. Kr1Kd6 is responsible for keeping one page, "List of techniques", full of spam. Each page that gets spammed also gets its own bot username, or more, to keep that spam present. Sometimes, more than one bot username ends up fighting over the same page. Whether or not this is the same bot, or two different parties, is unknown to me, but I believe they post different sets of lists, suggesting they are in fact two parties, not one.

I guess it's time for a page cull.


Okay, I've gone through and reverted the most recent trash.
I also did a WHOIS on the sole site these links point to. rigour.info, and www.rigour.info, both lead to a single line page which makes no sense in context, "EXPENSIVE WEB HOSTING FOR E-COMMERCE IS HERE!". rigour.info is protected by Privacyprotect.org, an anonymising resource. Fortunately, Privacyprotect.org has a complaint option.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2007 06:09PM by Sean Roach.

the real solution would be to make the wiki harder to spam. we use mediawiki. since its used by wikipedia, there has to be some sort of captcha system we could install. the wiki isnt hosted on my server, and i dont have any admin access... so if anyone wants to step up and give it a shot, you will need to contact sebastien.

Ok, Im volunteering to do this job. Im looking for sebastian's email address...

Edit:
Am I right, that he is the right person?:
[reprap.org]

Ok I have contacted sebastian, waiting for his reply.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2007 02:54AM by khiraly.

that is the correct sebastien.

thanks for volunteering.

No reply so far.

There are two solution:
- either I do it myself (need access to the mediawiki installed directory, and you need to TRUST me)
- I write a step-by-step tutorial, and somebody (who have access) do it.

From friday I will be off-home, so I will be available after 10 of september.

sebastien is the only one with access to it. :-/

if it was on my server, i'd get you access to it, but unfortunately its not.

Hope I will get answer till 10 of september

I just looked to my mailbox, and sebastian didnt replied to my mail. And the wiki is still full of spam. Zach: do you have an idea, how can we resolve this issue?

How about tracing down the "people" posting the spam, and pointing them to a nice anti-virus program?
I've become convinced we're the victim of a 'bot-net.
The attack has "evolved" somewhat, but at least one of the "spammers" is still doing something the rest quit doing in May, suggesting an earlier version of the 'bot. That something is damaging the original document when spam is added...and sometimes, (okay, once), posting nothing, but still damaging the document.

One could almost automate the cleanup, but doing so would prevent any future changes to the wiki.

Actually, one could automate the cleanup, if one used the names of the spammers, that they posted, as the trigger event. If another 'bot was added, however, you'd miss it, and the spam would slowly filter back in, as new 'bots took over for the non-functional ones.

Every morning, and evening, I'm wiping out the existing spam. A load meets me when I wake, and after work.

Khiraly...did you forget your password?

>Khiraly...did you forget your password?
nope, just im not on my home laptop. Didnt brother to log in.

The only way of fighting against spam, is to make sure that the other partie is a human being, and not a program (bot). (any other method its like pissing against the wind. Not really working.)

The simplest way, is implement a captcha, or ask a simple math question.
Whatever we do its require some mediawiki change.

I think of recaptcha.net, I already registered, and tried out on a mediawiki installation.(there are off-the-shelf modules to install) Its pretty simple, straightforward.

We need somebody who have access to the mediawiki installed directory. OR set up an another server.
I hope sebastian will be online in the near future and read this forum or my email

Khiraly

khiraly: yeah, theres not much i can do. hopefully sebastien will log on and allow someone access to the server to get some fixes in there, otherwise we dont really have much of an option here.

I came across

[wiki.evernex.com]

in my travels today. Perhaps it will help.

I see that the page is spammed again, I am guessing Sebastian is still missing?

I did some searching last week and found some basic scripts that detect and automatically revert spam. It looks like they were written years ago before there were spam-prevention features available for mediawiki, and they were abandoned shortly after those features were created. I got it up and running and it sort of works. It has a bad habit of mangling some of the pages that have non-ascii characters (bullets mostly) and it messes up some of the fancier HTML formatting.

Is there any hope in sight for getting spam-prevention in the wiki? I noticed Zach mentioned switching the main site over to mediawiki within the next few weeks. Any chance you could bring the objects.reprap.org content into the same wiki and just take over the host name, at least until Sebastian resurfaces?

I have a feeling the script I found could be fixed to avoid corrupting the pages, but it looks like a few days of work. If there's a good chance of a cleaner solution appearing in the near future, I'd much rather spend that time turning plastic into goo and then back into plastic.

yeah, definitely use the time to work on reprap. i'll brush off my perl skills and see about the twiki -> mediawiki conversion script. with any luck, i'll be able to finish the job this weekend. i also would much rather be melting plastic.

ZachHoeken Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> yeah, definitely use the time to work on reprap.
> i'll brush off my perl skills and see about the
> twiki -> mediawiki conversion script. with any
> luck, i'll be able to finish the job this weekend.

Great, I was hoping I'd get out of this. Just wanted to make sure there was an end in sight.

> i also would much rather be melting plastic.

Cooler weather is coming...

Hi all,

Found some spam in the wiki again. Under the Object Library link. Sucks.

Demented

Now that Sebastian is back up and about. How about canceling the following accounts?
All are used exclusively to spam a single page apiece, all have been around awhile, and none have made any useful edits.

Incidentally, all are named with six character names, with the first and fourth capitalized.

All have "posted" spam in the last four days.

Bb9Vo0, CmnQth, HbcUg1, HpfUv6, Ie2Grh, JsfErm, JvbFgw, Kr1Kd6, Ie2Grh, MezIev, MktPne, NqnHyi, OldHbx, QoiNgq, RpbIfe, Rs9Vdc, Rt6Vl7, ThbT7s, TznJuv, WlkJhd, WpjEa4, Xz9K7n, YjqCeh

Edit: Of course, as long as these 23 "users" are causing trouble, some of us are visiting the 'site. Very few legitimate changes have been introduced to the 'site in some while. I think the last was a request for models for 'adult' toys.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2007 11:57AM by Sean Roach.

Looks like someone decided to assault us. Only the opening salvos, yet. He added one nonsense word to the first line of 22 pages, at a rate of about two pages per minute.

Can you move the wiki? Break a few links?
I doubt these 'bots navigate via the homepage, or even the recent changes page as I do. More likely, they have the URL's of their target page softwired, so changing the URL's of the targeted pages themselves would probably interrupt the spam-bots for a while.

Just changing the working directory, while creating a redirect in the old working directory, should do it, and could be repeated as necessary.

Wouldn't one solution to stop the spambots be to enable email registration in the wiki? That way to be able to edit a wiki page the user has to receive a validation email when their account is created. I believe that is standard mediawiki functionality.

Yes, plus banning the existing spambot accounts.
Moving the working directory might be easier.

Either way, moving the working dir (which I think isn't a solution), setting up email registration confirmation both would require access to the server. Banning the existing accounts would only require Sysop access, but where's a sysop? Having somebody else able to perform at least the act of banning spammers gives me a better feeling about not having to worry too much about reliance on one person to manage everything.
I manage an installation of Mediawiki as part of my day job so I know a few things about the software and in my case it certainly helps to have a backup to mess around with things when I'm busy performing CPR on some server or other