THE BSS 2

[Danny Mitchell]

A Wee Glimpse Of What Goes On Under The Hood Of The Forum!

Is he another of these bot. or spurious members??? It must be difficult to police and one strange thing of late is the number of Russians who have become members!!! I for one think it's possibly time to remove any "Member" who can not be contacted or who don't post to be removed. Perhaps it's more work for admin, sorry guys you do a great job but the net seems to have big holes in it and allows the nasties in.

That's perhaps easy to say, but when you understand the numbers involved you may appreciate the work that is done a little more

Actually, the anti-spam measures on this board work extremely well. To to date, not one spammer has ever managed to successfully post a spam message.

The first line of defence is that all traffic to the forum is routed through Cloudflare, which automatically blocks known bad browsers, URL requests and IP addresses from even accessing the forum. In the last month over 3,000 attacks were blocked at this stage.

bss-cloudflare-threats.png

bss-cloudflare-threats-by-country.png

If they make it through Cloudflare, the registration process itself is protected by reCAPTCHA (the "I am not a robot" checkbox you'll have seen elsewhere) which does a decent job at blocking, in the last 90 days alone, up to 155 registration attempts a day: -

bss-recaptcha-90-days.JPG

A few manage to register (currently quite high at about 12 per day), and when they do their first post is queued for moderation. At this point the offending post (only seen by admins) is deleted, and the member removed and banned (by their IP number, username and email address): -

bss-moderator-log-3-days.png

The dodgy members you may see now and then on the memberlist are spammers who have registered, and then not attempted to post, and so haven't come to the admins' attention. Every now and then the memberlist is pruned, removing all members with 0 posts (see Memberlist Pruning), but this isn't done too often as it runs the risk of deleting genuine "lurker" member who have registered but never got around to posting.

So there you go, an insight into the behind-the-scenes work against the spam army!

I've lifted this from the depths of another section/topic, just in case any members might miss it. I'm afraid you can't see the 'graph pings', but you get the idea.

Thank you Marc and Bob, you two are the berries

[Arcada]

Thanks Danny!

Original post is here for anyone interested in the stats: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=13748#p59048

[WineRider]

I hope I haven't given the wrong idea about the work you all do, in keeping us safe as is practicable. Because that is as I know far from the truth. It is one of the hardest jobs going and whatever you do I'm in favour of all your actions. Thank you for you dilligence and in many cases over and above the call of duty. Scammers are on the loose everywhere and from all countries, so it is even harder to police. But they are persistent buggers what ever their intentions. I must be getting old...where did honesty go? And another question is why is there so much apathy about getting justice against an out and out crook?

[Arcada]

I hope I haven't given the wrong idea about the work you all do, in keeping us safe as is practicable. Because that is as I know far from the truth. It is one of the hardest jobs going and whatever you do I'm in favour of all your actions. Thank you for you dilligence and in many cases over and above the call of duty.

Not at all, Maurice. Your post just made me go look at the stats which I posted, just to give everyone an insight into what goes on behind the scenes as far as spammers are concerned.

Since spammers have never, to date, posted a message successfully that's been seen by anyone other than admins, all they get is a member profile... which can include links to unsavoury or even dangerous websites. Like everywhere else online, I advise members to never click on random links on member profiles they don't know, especially if that member has 0 posts.

[Danny Mitchell]

I must be getting old...where did honesty go?

I feel the same, Maurice. When I think back to when I was a kid, no one locked their front door, neighbours would look out for each other and trust was a given, and this was in a much maligned part of Glasgow.
The internet, sadly, seems to be the Wild West for these faceless scammers. You've got to "ca' canny", as we say in these here parts.

[Mcneilwaeasteel]

Danny started with

“ A Wee Glimpse Of What Goes On Under The Hood Of The Forum! “
“ Thank you Marc and Bob, you two are the berries "

This was the first part of this post before two “cowboys“ fell off their horses and turned into “scammers“ as they slipped under the radar and web security, policed by Marc.

This site owes a lot to all the “ berries “ who keep it going but it’s the roots that keep it firmly on the ground growing strong and healthy.

A lot of members read the topics posted here without passing comments on them, which is a good thing when you read some of the the I post!
It’s thanks to Bob and Marc that this is possible and long may it continue.

So I’m going to finish up here and raise a toast in thanks to the BSS 2 and all of t'others who keep this site going!

P. S.

Do I " ca canny " on the Plonk, or the Lannie,
that t'is the question?

[Danny Mitchell]

Robert, you get wired right in to your weapon of choice, a wee cuppa tea, perhaps

[Tony Smart]

Further to Danny's comment. Also when I was a kid nobody locked their front doors, - nobody had much anyway.
Mind you that was due to nobody locking their front doors .........