Massive Spambot invasion 4/16/2016

[Hank]

As you might have noticed, the Guild is currently being targeted by an enormous spambot attack. If you see a thread promoting a website in Chinese (or whatever Asian language that is), don't click on it.

There's also no point in reporting the individual threads. There are hundreds upon hundreds of them. Mahz has been alerted to the situation, until then, hang tight. Subscribe to the threads you want to follow so you don't lose them in the mess.

EDIT: Mahz is now aware of the issue and will work on cleanup/prevention measures today.

EDIT 2: The spam has been cleared and the bot accounts are banned. If you see any rogue spam, report it here. New registrations are temporarily disabled until Mahz implements an automatic anti-bot filter.

[Kurai Assassin]

I thought the Captcha that keeps occuring was supposed to prevent the bots?

[Salrynn]

Yeah, they must have bypassed it. But how? We may never know.

[Kurai Assassin]

I say we fight back against the Spammers. while there is very little we can do aside from reporting it, there must be a way we can keep their posts off the front page

[Mahz]

Thanks, I'll take a look when I get to work in a bit, survey the damage, and figure out how I want to fix it and implement a real anti-spambot solution finally.

The Great Spambot War has begun!

Gonna grab some breakfast to fuel my body, mind, spirit and prepare for my first move.

[Krinos Solstice]

Yeah, they must have bypassed it. But how? We may never know.

@Salrynn

Very easily. It's simple to create a macro for a bot to bypass the authentication, especially if it's just a 'click here to authenticate' method.

[Blizz]

Thanks, I'll take a look when I get to work in a bit, survey the damage, and figure out how I want to fix it and implement a real anti-spambot solution finally.

The Great Spambot War has begun!

Gonna grab some breakfast to fuel my body, mind, spirit and prepare for my first move.

@Mahz

We're right here with you mate.

[The Grey Dust]

At least the other spam bots offered us affordably priced furniture.
I was rather interested in that mahogany display cabinet for my teapots.
I'm not even sure what these bots with their Korean scripts are even offering us.

[Kurai Assassin]

Thanks, I'll take a look when I get to work in a bit, survey the damage, and figure out how I want to fix it and implement a real anti-spambot solution finally.

The Great Spambot War has begun!

Gonna grab some breakfast to fuel my body, mind, spirit and prepare for my first move.

@Mahz

You have my Sword

[Chat Noir]

Thank you guys for your hard work.

[SilverRain]

At least the other spam bots offered us affordably priced furniture.
I was rather interested in that mahogany display cabinet for my teapots.
I'm not even sure what these bots with their Korean scripts are even offering us.

@The Grey Dust

Korean BBQ? Hello Kitty stamps? :P

I say we fight back against the Spammers. while there is very little we can do aside from reporting it, there must be a way we can keep their posts off the front page

@Kurai Assassin

In the meantime, if it helps, I'm just bumping whatever I can (apologies to the GMs), to keep our front page K-free.

[Kurai Assassin]

@Mahz
I think there needs to be some more mods appointed to removing these bots quickly, atleast one or two per timezone so we can stop things like this happening. For now though, the Bot Killer Squad (Ie me and anyone else wishes to help fight the good fight) will continue to report these bots to the proper authorities. This is a recruitment to those who wish to battle the bots. they are targeting the Roleplay discussion, Free casual, Nation, and tabletop aswell as interest checks. they will be on the front page as they tend to post one every minute.

Good luck to the fellow Bot fighters out there and to the General Users stay safe and dont click on or believe anything that isnt an RP or is in Korean unless you can confirm that the thread is an actual RP.

- Bot Killer Squad

[AltRightHero]

Did anyone actually click the links, if so, what where they selling.
Illegal North Korean Nuclear Bombs?

[Kurai Assassin]

@AltRightHero

worse, shitty gambling sites!

[Krinos Solstice]

@SilverRain A good idea, and I'm sure the GMs won't mind, given the situation.

[AltRightHero]

@AltRightHero

worse, shitty gambling sites!

@Kurai Assassin

Damn.

[Shienvien]

I could volunteer for exclusively bot-nuking, I suppose. I'm in GMT+2 and at least when I'm working tend to patrol sites every half an hour or so.

Also, I'd advocate against clicking the links. There is at least the chance you'll be picking up undesirable cookies in doing so.

EDIT: as an afterthought, bumping non-bot threads might actually make it less convenient to nuke the bot-threads...

[Kurai Assassin]

@Shienvien

heres a link to the Bot Hunter thread i created. all bot hunters go here and we will assign sectors to patrol

roleplayerguild.com/topics/98977-bot-k..

[SilverRain]

I could volunteer for exclusively bot-nuking, I suppose. I'm in GMT+2 and at least when I'm working tend to patrol sites every half an hour or so.

Also, I'd advocate against clicking the links. There is at least the chance you'll be picking up undesirable cookies in doing so.

EDIT: as an afterthought, bumping non-bot threads might actually make it less convenient to nuke the bot-threads...

@Shienvien

Should I hold off on bumping non-bot threads?

[Hank]

Commendable effort, but we're talking more than a thousand threads to be cleansed. If need be we will systematically remove them manually, but I'm hoping Mahz can come up with a better solution.