Rash of Spam Registration
- Thread starter Ben Ruset
- Start date
Someone who gets paid $600 for each license of the software they sell. I am sure he makes quite a tidy sum.
These spammers are getting out of hand. I sent the following email to the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC.
Dear Russian Embassy,
Greetings! I am a senior official with the United States State Department and a special liaison to the president of the United States. I am contacting you on behalf of the president of the United States.
Our two countries have enjoyed a peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship since the Soviet Union went bankrupt and dissolved trying to keep up with America's military technology and defense build-up. HA! HA!...sorry. The United States is a peaceful nation and we value our relationship with the new Russian Federation. America is slow to wrath and Americans are a tolerant people. We know the women you put on those Russian marriage websites who are trying to find husbands in America are too ugly to get dates in Russia. We know that Kaspersky Internet Security uses so many CPU's that it will turn our computers into slugs. And we know that your overpriced "boutique" vodka's aren't even as good as most West Virginia moonshine. But do we take any action to stop any of this? No! Why? Because we're nice people.
When we Americans are not driving our big cars, eating surf & turf dinners with our trophy wives, counting our money, or thanking God that we weren't born in France, we like to gather on internet forums to discuss various issues. It is my sad duty to inform you that some citizens from your country have been spamming our internet forums, trying to sell us crap that we already get from China. Can't you people do anything to stop this? I mean, after all, you were communists for 70 years. You used to be pretty good at controlling people. You couldn't have forgotten everything?
The president has authorized me to inform you that you have 30 days to stop these aggressive, unprovoked attacks on our internet forums. If this aggression continues, America will enact sanctions against Russia, which will escalate in the following manner until you comply.
30 Days Non-Compliance: We will dispatch thousands of people to Russia and dress them up as Sponge Bob Square Pants and post them at intersections where they will jump up and down and waive at you as you drive by.
60 Days Non-Compliance: We will send Montel Williams to Russia and schedule him to do hundreds of newspaper, radio and TV interviews, and you can listen to him bitch, moan and whine about how his life sucks.
90 Days Non-Compliance: We will donate history books to all the schools in Russia. These history books will contain a chapter detailing the Russian Army's crushing defeat by France during World War II.
120 Days Non-Compliance: We will send the National Organization of Women to Russia to open branch offices in all of your cities.
It is our hope that this matter can be resolved without the use of sanctions. Psst...the president is probably going to get mad at me for telling you this, but we have weapons in space that can destroy you in seconds. You won't even have time to push the buttons of your nukes.
Have a blessed day,
Old Crazy (special liaison to the president)
Dear Russian Embassy,
Greetings! I am a senior official with the United States State Department and a special liaison to the president of the United States. I am contacting you on behalf of the president of the United States.
Our two countries have enjoyed a peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship since the Soviet Union went bankrupt and dissolved trying to keep up with America's military technology and defense build-up. HA! HA!...sorry. The United States is a peaceful nation and we value our relationship with the new Russian Federation. America is slow to wrath and Americans are a tolerant people. We know the women you put on those Russian marriage websites who are trying to find husbands in America are too ugly to get dates in Russia. We know that Kaspersky Internet Security uses so many CPU's that it will turn our computers into slugs. And we know that your overpriced "boutique" vodka's aren't even as good as most West Virginia moonshine. But do we take any action to stop any of this? No! Why? Because we're nice people.
When we Americans are not driving our big cars, eating surf & turf dinners with our trophy wives, counting our money, or thanking God that we weren't born in France, we like to gather on internet forums to discuss various issues. It is my sad duty to inform you that some citizens from your country have been spamming our internet forums, trying to sell us crap that we already get from China. Can't you people do anything to stop this? I mean, after all, you were communists for 70 years. You used to be pretty good at controlling people. You couldn't have forgotten everything?
The president has authorized me to inform you that you have 30 days to stop these aggressive, unprovoked attacks on our internet forums. If this aggression continues, America will enact sanctions against Russia, which will escalate in the following manner until you comply.
30 Days Non-Compliance: We will dispatch thousands of people to Russia and dress them up as Sponge Bob Square Pants and post them at intersections where they will jump up and down and waive at you as you drive by.
60 Days Non-Compliance: We will send Montel Williams to Russia and schedule him to do hundreds of newspaper, radio and TV interviews, and you can listen to him bitch, moan and whine about how his life sucks.
90 Days Non-Compliance: We will donate history books to all the schools in Russia. These history books will contain a chapter detailing the Russian Army's crushing defeat by France during World War II.
120 Days Non-Compliance: We will send the National Organization of Women to Russia to open branch offices in all of your cities.
It is our hope that this matter can be resolved without the use of sanctions. Psst...the president is probably going to get mad at me for telling you this, but we have weapons in space that can destroy you in seconds. You won't even have time to push the buttons of your nukes.
Have a blessed day,
Old Crazy (special liaison to the president)
I hate to say so—and it will be a whole lot more work for Ben and Guy—but perhaps the time has come for potential new members to apply for membership rather than just being able to join unimpeded. The rate at which these spammers are joining is unprecedented and I fear it will only continue to escalate.
Jerseyman
Jerseyman
I remember when I was a youngun arguing with my Pop Pop that NJ was bigger then WV.He tried arguing with me but I was a little know it all so he compromised by saying "well if West Virginia was flattened out it would be bigger then Texas".I have since learned I didn't know it all after all.I hope no one ever flattens out WV.
I really hope it doesn't have to come to that, but sadly I see the day when Guy and I have to manually approve new registrations coming.
More backend changes. Knock on wood that will keep the few that manage to sneak through the other countermeasures out.
France kicked Russia's ass in World War 2????? learn something new everyday
Well if it's in a scholastic history book, it must be true! Academics are pros at keeping their bias out of their teaching.
Add one of those random code generator thingies to the registration where the correct random code that is displayed has to be entered for the registration to be valid. Should catch the vast majority of the spam registrations.
That "thingie" is called a captcha. One of the surprising things I noticed in the link the Ben posted above about XRumer was:
Love the sarcasm OC,keep it comingWell if it's in a scholastic history book, it must be true! Academics are pros at keeping their bias out of their teaching.
Many of the boards I belong to required a manual verification step before posting rights were granted. I don't see it as a big deal implimenting something like that here, but I'm not the one that has to do the manual adds/updates or fight the spammers for that matter.
We were using reCaptcha, however that XRumer software has found a way of defeating those.
Knock on wood, though, so far we have not had any spam registrations go through since I made my tweaks last night.