Updated Forum Permissions

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

Since the forum was moved to this URL and using the updated phpBB forum software, the ONLY section non-members could view was the Guest section - and there was little there of any real significance...apart from the occasional spambot message (which were deleted).

I've now had a think through of what the forum should be doing (which is to encourage people to join in) and as such, I've now "opened up" what can be seen by "Guests" - that is people who haven't joined the forum and haven't signed in.

So, the following sections (and their various sub-sections):

General Forum
All ACTIVE BOINC Projects

are now on OPEN VIEW to ANYONE who visits for the next (say) 4 weeks. All other sections still require people to either register or login to their account.

Guests cannot post to the above forums but the above sections are viewable so people can see what we're up to - and if they like the topics and/or messages they can now see, they might be encouraged to join in.

I would hope that this experiment works and maybe the forum membership might grow - it's worth a try anyhows

EDIT: I have re-enabled forum registration to allow people to join, if they want to. But I will have to keep an eye out for spambots !!

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

...and no surprise then that as soon as I open up user registration, spambots attempt to register onto the forum.

The spambots won't get far, as all registrations have to be confirmed by an admin...and we can monitor who is trying to register, (so we can check their authenticity) and where the IP address requests are coming from...and BAN them from trying again, if needs be.

EDIT: As of 18th July - 4 spambots have tried...but I have a database of banned IP addresses, so once a spambot tries, future attempts won't be allowed, plus all other IP addresses in the same Class B range for that network - so xxx.yyy.*.* are all banned

Attempts to register by spambots, as of:
16th July - 2 attempts
17th July - 1 more
18th July - 1 more
19th July - 2 more
20th July - 2 more - we're now up to 8 (in total)
25th July - another 13, making 21
26th July - another 5, making 26
27th July - another 8
28th July - 6 more
29th July - only 3 more
30th July - just 2
31st July - and 5 more
In total: 50 spambots tried and failed

1st Aug - 1
2nd Aug - 2
3rd Aug - 2
5th Aug - 1
6th Aug - 1
8th Aug - 2

in total: 9 so far

regards
Tim

[gmlack]

EDIT: As of 18th July - 4 spambots have tried...but I have a database of banned IP addresses, so once a spambot tries, future attempts won't be allowed, plus all other IP addresses in the same Class B range for that network - so xxx.yyy.*.* are all banned

What if it is a class C address? Banning its class B range would be somewhat excessive.

[UBT - Timbo]

What if it is a class C address? Banning its class B range would be somewhat excessive.

Hi and welcome to the forum.

It really depends on which Class B network is responsible for the spambots and also which location they are based in.

Historically, when we've opened up forum registration before, (and this was done on a number of occasions), the majority of spambots came from specific countries (which for obvious reasons I'm not naming)...so, once we see such an "attack" happening (and this would be from multiple IP addresses in the SAME xxx.yyy.*.* block), then we can manually adjust the IP blocking to cover a wider range...

(I should also point out that IPv4 addresses are normally allocated to specific networks in specific countries, so blocking one particular xxx.yyy IP address will just limit the number of spambots that will originate in that country - and needless to say, as a UK based team, we're very unlikely to be attracting genuine forum members from certain countries).

I guess the issue really is down to phpBB providing software that has better spambot prevention tools....we had installed the Stop Forum Spam extension, (which only blocks specific IP addresses that have been found to permit spambots) but had to disable it, when it wasn't updated to work with the latest release of phpBB.

regards
Tim