spam bots on forums

[Zeebu]

can someone do something about this? i used to have forum mod powers to take care of this sort of thing but those got taken away because someone was an idiot.

[Leland]

what chu talkg ab out

[qan]

can someone do something about this? i used to have forum mod powers to take care of this sort of thing but those got taken away because someone was an idiot.

Idiot reporting in. Somehow a forum admin account was compromised, which led to a nasty infection that you might remember from a year or so back. Redirected users to some other site. So per the cleanup instructions, I removed any extraneous admin/mod accounts and forced a password reset on the remaining.

Haven't been IP banning the spammers lately ... they seem persistent, and often use the same IP, so going to start IP-banning each time. The last round was one in the US and one in Bangladesh, over like 15 users.

If you'd like to get mod powers back and someone can vouch for you having had them before (and you'll use a password here that you use nowhere else, as you should basically assume that a bunch of your accounts across the web are hacked -- see haveibeenpwned.com for a small subset of the sites your password has been harvested from, and then later sold to cool dudes for the purpose of attempting to get into your other accounts), don't see any problem with that.

[Zeebu]

i didnt remember/never knew why the powers got taken away, sorry for the idiot comment

i thought the forums, at one time, required some sort of in game verification in order to sign up. or at least a mod's pencil whip

[Leland]

i was enjoying those posts

[Jerome Scuggs]

Idiot reporting in. Somehow a forum admin account was compromised, which led to a nasty infection that you might remember from a year or so back. Redirected users to some other site. So per the cleanup instructions, I removed any extraneous admin/mod accounts and forced a password reset on the remaining.

Haven't been IP banning the spammers lately ... they seem persistent, and often use the same IP, so going to start IP-banning each time. The last round was one in the US and one in Bangladesh, over like 15 users.

If you'd like to get mod powers back and someone can vouch for you having had them before (and you'll use a password here that you use nowhere else, as you should basically assume that a bunch of your accounts across the web are hacked -- see haveibeenpwned.com for a small subset of the sites your password has been harvested from, and then later sold to cool dudes for the purpose of attempting to get into your other accounts), don't see any problem with that.

i can vouch for zeebu, he was at least a forum-wide mod if not a straight up admin

also yes i now use google authenticator on any and all places online that i can do so, failing that at least some sort of 2-factor authentication, like SMS authorization. and because of this i have to use a unique password for twforums, which has no 2fa, and i forgot it, so if chrome ever loses the saved password i will officially never post again

[Jerome Scuggs]

i was enjoying those posts

also. petition to instead simply create a new subforum, create a new usergroup that can only post there but nowhere else, and banish the spambots there for leland's, and therefore my, entertainment

[qan]

i thought the forums, at one time, required some sort of in game verification in order to sign up. or at least a mod's pencil whip

We used to have a question/answer section that related to the game. But then we went to reCaptchav2. You can't do both with this version of vBulletin sadly...

Re-added you as mod, please let me know if it works/doesn't work for moderating various forums.

[qan]

i can vouch for zeebu, he was at least a forum-wide mod if not a straight up admin

also yes i now use google authenticator on any and all places online that i can do so, failing that at least some sort of 2-factor authentication, like SMS authorization. and because of this i have to use a unique password for twforums, which has no 2fa, and i forgot it, so if chrome ever loses the saved password i will officially never post again

OK, thanks for that.

If you want to see what your password is for forums, can always go to chrome://settings -> Show advanced settings -> Passwords -> Manage passwords. Pretty awful that anyone who happens to have physical access to your computer can look those up. But I guess in these sorts of situations it's sort of useful.

[Crescent Seal]

I do not vouch for zeebu. He was never an admin in anything except for magic the gathering in his local mall.