New user registrations re-enabled [was: disabled (for now, due to spam)]

[impaktor]

The moderation log has grown with 4 pages the past week, and 2 of those are from today. We've tried banning user name, but the spam-bot changes username, when email is banned that changes, and when IP is banned that changes as well.

I've added some more registration questions and removed the oldest/simplest one, that used to help in previous times, but apparently not now.

I'm disabling forum registration for now, (usually not more than 1-3 users/month register anyway), and if a HUMAN wants to register they now have to contact us on IRC, email, github, SpaceSsimCentral, twitter, or wherever, and we can reactivate the forum registration and see how that works.

EDIT 2017-09-14: re-enabled registration, and un-announced this topic.

[nozmajner]

(Sorry :D )

[impaktor]

OK, Not only banned thise little bastards, now I've *deleted* them to purge us of this pestilence, and stomp them into the ground, and leave no traces of them for history to remember. To the victor go the spoils

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noledfar
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MARY123
eoledfar
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nohnigeOrnk70
nohnigeOrxj79
nohnigeOrgn72
nohnigeOrck84
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nohnigeOrdf75
nohnigeOrmj83
nohnigeOrgj72
nohnigeOrzc83
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nohnigeOrte81
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nohnigeOrmy74
poledfar
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Alice123
JIANG AMILY

[FluffyFreak]

Can we install some other filtering things for registration?
Alternate captcha/recaptcha systems like "tick only the green box" etc?

[GunChleoc]

Are you still having spam problems?

You could try the sortables captcha: https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/exte ... s_captcha/

[impaktor]

I've unlocked the forum again, and trying a new captcha. In this one the noise can be configured, it can be set to be unreadable by humans, but for now I've set it to be semi-difficult.

If this fails, based on what I've read on phpBB forums, Q&A is the way to go. When we had Q&A we eventually got spammers, so back then I added more questions, but I don't know if I removed all the old ones, as they've been compromised. Also, the questions must be un-searchable, thus excluding any Spock/Jedi ST/SW references, as fun as they can be, but I think this is where we/I slipped up.

If this captcha doesn't work, then I think the way to go is to have just one single question, that is 100% un-searchable, so something that references something in pioneer. Like starting year was pretty good. I don't know if that specific question was the one that was cracked or one of the others?

To describe what is in the logo, or name of biggest ship, or name some specific ship equipment might also be good. Or coordinates of one of our hand scripted systems?

Or super Elitist (Elite reference-intended?) and evil: the hash of some specific commit?

There are also human spammers, so it is inevitable that sometimes, with Q&A, some slip through. It's a balance between how often we need to remove spam vs. how often we need to unlock the forum for registration.

[nozmajner]

Starting year seems to work for the wiki pretty nicely. But that could be also because wikimedia being less popular for spammers (not something I know, just a possibility).

[FluffyFreak]

Time to kill the registration again it seems!

[impaktor]

Cleaned up and switched to single Q&A. If that's compromised then we'll ask the name of the planet of the second starting option or something. It should be something that really requires the person to have played the game, or even open the game to check the answer.

And if some human spammer is reading this: we're less than 10 active people on this forum, none of us will ever buy your shit, so your time is better spent elsewhere. Also: please contemplate suicide for the betterment of the human race.

[impaktor]

We seem to be out of the woods now. No spam, no new registrations at all in fact, so seems like this is working fine. I'm un-announcing this thread, making it a "normal standard" topic, and edited the headline.