More spam-bots

[Giskard]

There has been some excessive spamming in #unfiction and various other channels related to Unfiction (mostly the ones listed in the topic at #unfiction).

The bots spam a URL to a certain website, which has already been entered into the list of forbidden words, but they just go around that by using spaces or other ways to modify the url.

After #unfiction was set to +M (which we really rather wouldn't as it isn't very friendly), they started spamming via /msg to different people in the channel.

Quite a few of them have at least been banned from the main channel, but this doesn't stop the PMs and spamming in various other channels.

Hostnames we found they were on, among others:

- bu.edu
- bostream.se
- mu.edu
- serverkompetenz.net
- kallisti.de
- cambrium.nl

This seems very random, they are probably using some method to spoof/switch these hosts. There were over 70 kicks today alone  :-\

I hope there's something that can be done about this, because it's becoming increasingly annoying

(logs available, if they are needed)

[Legend]

Hey Giskard,

Yes, please forward any logs to legend@chat-solutions.org (with reference to this issue) and I will look into it.

Thanks

[Giskard]

Sent. Thanks for looking into it!

[Giskard]

Unfortunately, we've had another wave of spambot attacks. Both spamming the same N**imaginative crap again, and also a lot of leave/join spam this time.

It's getting really annoying now, we've had #unfiction in +m for for quite some time now, and today we had to put a key on the channel to keep out those leave/join spammers, both of which aren't exactly welcoming

I wish these people would go away, as they are clearly not getting anywhere with this except being bloody annoying. Oh well, I guess that goes for all forms of spam...

I think this occurence might have already been mentioned in #help this afternoon, but I will attach a log for completeness sake.. Ok scratch that, the forum isn't letting me attach it, linky instead: click.

[Legend]

I've added a couple more server-wide spam blocks for Neoimaginative based on what I saw in your logs. RungeKutta banned most of the problematic host names earlier; tonight, I've added a few more bans onto that list.

We have recently added a TOR scanner, which has caught some of the bots, but obviously not all. I understand how annoying the spambots are. This is the most persistent I've seen anyone at spamming. The CS staff are on top of getting rid of these bad users. With every new ban, it becomes harder for the bots to connect. We will continue to stay on top of whatever we can do to keep the bots off the network.

In the meantime, logs like you have provided today are always helpful for investigating.

Thank you.

[Giskard]

Thanks again Legend. Here's some more from tonight: click.

[Giskard]

And today, which was different from earlier attempts in that it was a 'coordinated' attack apparently. Click.

[Legend]

Thanks for the updates.

We've added a network wide spamfilter that should block future instances of that website address.