Wiki Spam
 

It looks like someone is purposefully harming the wiki. Is it possible to revert the changes made and to place a tighter level of security on who can post in the wiki?

as far as I know, it’s just random arse boot which are doing it as its open like a book :(

People have re-updated it over and over, but until security measures are taken to stop these bots from posting, it won’t do much good :(


- froglok

I guess I don't understand how this Wiki works, who started it? and how can some control be put into it? By control, I mean at least some measures to stop the spam bots. I've been thinking about posting all I know/learned with EqEmu in the Wiki, but hate to waste my time.

how about someone else hosting a new wiki, where we secure it and moderate it? if the old one isnt offering what we need and no one with admin control is addressing the security, then its useless to keep fixing it. is there a way to export out the data somehow and rebuild a new one?

== sfisque

I don’t think having someone else host the EQEmu official Wiki is worth it, that’s just reinventing the wheel... again. Why not appoint a Wiki moderator and have the admin of the site lock it down to say, registered members only?

2 ideas which have previously been brought up by other posts / members.

1. Registered users only
2. The image, were you need to type in the text (capcha or something, I forget the name).

Random idea, Content Approval - Someone else has to review it before it can be accessed publicly.

- froglok

agreed, but i have yet to see someone with admin privs to the wiki step up and say something.

lacking someone to lock down the wiki, our only other alternative is to start a new one. i was hoping my point would be seen by whomever has that level of access and they would feel instigated to say something.

== sfisque

Ahh cool cool :) sorry if I was abrupt.

AFAIK, I think mattmeck has the power over the Wiki,but im unsure.

- froglok

I don't moderating wiki spam if someone is needed.

I dont, Doodman, FNW and Rogean are the only ones who have any control over the wiki.

Ahh Okay, I wasnt sure. Just seemed logical. But I was wrong :)

- froglok

Just pointing out that we've been over this in two other threads, both within the month. :)

Actually if the admin of the wiki would contact me.. I can give ya some code to stop auto-signups on the wiki and can give ya some code to stop spam submissions.

Everyone has seen the "type what you see in the image" to create an account but the anti-spam script is our own that I created a few years back. Simply put, its the same type of preventative script that VB and phpBB uses to keep people from flooding a forum, based upon time.

CAPTCHA's won't stop the bots. there is plenty of CAPTCHA detecting OCR software out there that works great. The easiest thing to is to put a simple hidden form variable or add some custom field to the reg page. Then, the spammers have to manually modify their bots. They won't want to do it just for one site.

Mine will ;-) I haven't seen a CAPTCHA bot yet that can answer questions thats presented in an image =).

Such as in text "What color" In image "is the sky"? And...
in text "What are the first two letters in" in image "Rhumspheld"?

If bots can break that, its time for me to retire.

You would really have to have one hell of a reason system built into that bot.

You should start your retirement process now then :p~

Since your questions couldn't be completely random, it's just security through obscurity. All I need to do is manually refresh your page a few times and write down all the answers one time.

Since a bot can easily read your image text, it's simple to plug in the answers and have the bot compare text strings and generate the answer.

The main principal behind CAPTCHA is that the text is completely random, so it would be very difficult for someone to generate a hash table or maintain a list of answers. Setting a finite amount of possible solutions actually makes it easier for bots to crack your system.

Granted, noone would spend much effort to crack that type of CAPTCHA on a small site like this, but if it were a piece of widely distributed software or some big site, it would be cracked within minutes.

except that lalo's solution works fine for "untargetted" attacking. if someone is taking the time to sniff the site for vulnerabilities in order to hand craft their bot's attack, we can assume it is a targetted attack from a (most likely small) set of addresses which can be black listed.

security through obscurity works fine, if it is maintained (read: the dictionary of questions is modified over time to prevent staleness), for a "one off" which our wiki would be (there wont be 1000's of shrink wrapped releases of our wiki).

== sfisque

Yeah but come on lol, the spammer is posting advertisements. Thats not targeted in the least, thats the same as email spam; someone has a list of URLs set up in a bot to go out and advertise their websites for the search engines to pick up on. I've seen the same thing on MediaWiki quite a bit.

Image verification, even the simplest verifications will shut down the spam we have been seeing.

If someone is outright attacking the website, then the admins need to get a hold of the FBI, they DO investigate those whom intrude in networks and information systems (including gaining unauthorized access to spam the wiki).

CAPTCHA will not stop spam. Bots like XRumer have proven that.

Unless our wiki software was custom written, it is just like the thousands of other sites that use it .. which is why spam bots hit us.

Regardless, why go through the trouble of making images and creating a DB of questions/answers ? Just add 1 custom field into the reg page, like a checkbox. Then, any bot would have to be programmed to submit the extra data.

I have run a few sites with phpBB on them for several years and the only thing that has ever eliminated spam on them is by slightly altering the submitted fields. Every CAPTCHA mod I tried was cracked before I even installed it. Granted, phpBB is much more widespread than this wiki software, but the principal is the same.

There is a new trick spammers use .. they set up a free porn site, harvest your CAPTCHA image, post it to the porn site, make surfers solve it to view nekked pics, then store the answer so it can solve it on your site. Even the most advanced and unreadable image can be cracked this way.

I agree with you here, and I've been told this before. But I imagine they will eventually get around that too.
EqEmu Forums always has had active Mods- so the simpelest, most effective solution would be to do what we are doing in the forums now; you have to send a pm to the Admin for approval to post. In fact, probably everone who's a Wiki poster is an EqEmu member, so , clean up what you have now and start with a "forum members only" policy. May not be able to do this since the forum and Wiki are different programs, but the person that allows the user to post in these forums, can go over and sign people up for the Wiki.

You guys seem to have good ideas and solutions to getting rid of the spammers, but until something is implemented I (and hopefully a few others) will just continue to despam the Wiki manually. :)

Appreciate your help here - we're working on a solution to this problem, I really like the Wikki a lot, just like these forums, it has helped me very much.
I won't forget the Wikki, and we will get it fixed.

Angel seriously put up a Captcha... Its better to have some defense than none at all, like now.

I'd suggest the captcha, get it up, ready, and when you have time, make an email verification addy as well. I'm not sure of too many bots out there that can both read images and respond to email.

I still say the easiest way is to tag it to the forum info, people dont get access to post unless they PM and get given access, this would by far be the safest way.

Until they start spamming the forums with signups... I'd say stop them on the wiki unless they start targeting the forums... Then I would suggest moving to phpBB 3 =P

The forums were targeted years ago, hence the admin must activate accounts.

That is sad, but I still feel by making accounts admin activated is placing an uneeded burden you you admins a burden that can be liften with some crafty coding.

No problem for me, I live to kill spam, I always said I am Matts best guard dog for spam. I want to clean up Wikki too and so do the rest of us, this is the simplist, most effective way to do it.
I enjoy doing things for these forums, answering and verifing new users is no problem at all. Given the opportunity, I'll do the same for Wikki too.

I just make programs that auto-bans if someone is posting too quick, createing too many accounts, creating more than 2 accounts from the same IP and stuff like that =P I kill spam at the source he he >=)