MCAnimator3D wrote:

So a spambot puts viruses on your computer?! People these days…

Rumanti wrote:

MCAnimator3D wrote:

So a spambot puts viruses on your computer?! People these days…

… do anything for money… You mean?

ProdigyZeta7 wrote:

Rumanti wrote:

MCAnimator3D wrote:

So a spambot puts viruses on your computer?! People these days…

… do anything for money… You mean?

It's one of those English phrases. It indicates one's disbelief of what people do. It's really quite stupid how people are willing to do anything to ruin the lives of others, such as creating malicious spambots.

Now spambots themselves don't carry viruses. It's their job to give you a link to a webpage with dangerous code: the kind that causes an automated download of content without warning the user. This content almost always contains some kind of malware or virus that is never detected at first.

MCAnimator3D wrote:

So a spambot puts viruses on your computer?! People these days…

Harakou wrote:

When it comes to reporting spam, try to avoid replying to the topics. Chastising spammers or saying “spam” isn't going to make them stop, and just bumps their topic back to the top of the list. Most people here seem pretty good about not doing that, but it pops up occasionally, so I thought I'd mention it.

NoxSpooth wrote:

I think I've already reported 3 “hey bro whats up” topics…

Yes, something has to be done.

scratchisthebest wrote:

Maybe we could give this CAPTCHA a shot?
So the idea is you have markup something like this:

<form>
  <input type="text" name="TheRealUsername" placeholder="Username" />
  <input type="text" name="username" placeholder="Please leave this field blank" class="hide" />
</form>

and a style like this:

.hide {
  display: none !important;
}

and then simply block anybody who tries to enter anything in the field with the name=“username”. This works because spambots just read the flat html and don't evaluate the style. It would be trivial to write your own bot to get around this, but only script kiddies or people who suck at SEO use bots and they don't know how to write their own. {{citation needed}}

—–
Now here's the above part, just rewritten so it's easier to understand :P
So you make the signup form look like this:

             ┌──────────┐
   Username: │          │ <- name="RealUsername"
             └──────────┘

             ┌──────────┐
Leave blank: │          │ <- name="username"
             └──────────┘

             ┌──────────┐
   Password: │          │ <- name="password"
             └──────────┘

, and then you take the box that says “Leave blank” and hide it way off screen. However, spambots are stupid and they will still enter their username into the “Leave blank” field! This is because spambots are “blind” - they can only tell the fields apart by their name. Then it's easy to see of someone's a spammer - just check to see of anything's in the “leave blank” field.
—–

Obviously this method won't block human spammers. There's nothing better than a good old fashioned report button, however. Press it whenever you're even only suspicious of spam activity.

jontmy00 wrote:

I haven't really encountered many, and the current spammers aren't as spammy as the 1.4 ones; the most I've found is 1-2 topics by the same user.

PullJosh wrote:

My idea: The ST should design a custom captcha where there are three parts of the scratch cat that you have to drag around and place in the correct positions to complete the image. It would be easy for humans, hard for bots, and it would still be scratch-styled!

scimonster wrote:

I can testify that it's actually likely to take up to a couple hours to deal with spammas. (My latest report was “Spamma.” )
I think a simple captcha would be better than none; even just something like this one.\

SuperNicky wrote:

scimonster wrote:

I can testify that it's actually likely to take up to a couple hours to deal with spammas. (My latest report was “Spamma.” )
I think a simple captcha would be better than none; even just something like this one.\

:l not really sure about that one the spambot could put in
First name: sfhjseksjhgsiejreuk
Last name: ejkjkserhlsajifseofijsd

ProdigyZeta7 wrote:

I think we are about to revolutionize the fight against spam.

scratchisthebest wrote:

Also, the language barrier.

ProdigyZeta7 wrote:

scratchisthebest wrote:

Also, the language barrier.

Right. So just have a translator ready.