To be honest, this doesn't really fit either the questions or suggestions forum. The questions at the end sound very rhetorical…
Because the Google search on this site seems to want to index everything in it's path, it also indexes loads of forum and project spam. (commercial/scam) Being Google again, it shows the title of the forum topic or project in the search results as the big, bold link. There has been a lot of ‘tech support number’ spam going around recently, and these spammers/bots are placing the phone numbers to their fake ‘tech support’ in the title of their project or forum topic. So searching something like ‘tech support number’ will bring up an almost complete directory of fake scam phone numbers. Gmail is the most popular, but you can also find ‘support’ for cannon printers too. Some younger Scratchers could fall foul to this nasty trick, and maybe some older parents too. I doubt most parents would approve of scammy phone numbers on the site. But, the worst problem is that even if the spam is deleted, the search results are still there. The phone numbers are still there, even if the Scratch Team does go around cleaning up the spam. Now, one of the common arguments is that “who would search that anyhow??!!”. Some people would, because on the last few pages there are some legitimate projects and topics that someone may want to find. Here are some examples of the scam spam:


But why does Scratch even allow phone numbers as project and topic titles? Why does Scratch use Google search?

cheeseeater wrote:

But the question is, why is this happening? Why does Scratch even allow phone numbers as project and topic titles? Why does Scratch use Google search?

that's three questions

1. well obviously the person who created these bots wants money, and to do that they trick users into giving out personal information to access their bank accounts in return for bogus rewards.

2. I guess the ST never thought the likeliness of phone numbers in project titles, so they took the risk of leaving out the filter. I can tell you're implying that the ST should have taken better security measures and prevent that.

3. because Scratch (the servers) is not powerful enough to perform its own searches given its userbase. think of how long it takes to load Explore pages. and I fully understand your dire need to have it returned to a more up-to-date search engine but without the necessary resources we are forced to use Google.

Zro716 wrote:

cheeseeater wrote:

But the question is, why is this happening? Why does Scratch even allow phone numbers as project and topic titles? Why does Scratch use Google search?

that's three questions

1. well obviously the person who created these bots wants money, and to do that they trick users into giving out personal information to access their bank accounts in return for bogus rewards.

2. I guess the ST never thought the likeliness of phone numbers in project titles, so they took the risk of leaving out the filter. I can tell you're implying that the ST should have taken better security measures and prevent that.

3. because Scratch (the servers) is not powerful enough to perform its own searches given its userbase. think of how long it takes to load Explore pages. and I fully understand your dire need to have it returned to a more up-to-date search engine but without the necessary resources we are forced to use Google.

1. Sorry, that was the wording of the post. What I was meant to ask was: Why is this happening on Scratch, isn't there supposed to be measures against this?

2. I think they should add a phone number detector to check the titles of things, I honestly thought that was already covered…

3. I'm sure Scratch did it's own indexing at the start of 2.0. They said they switched to the Google search because of an ‘hour of code’ Scratch surge, but it was never changed back.

cheeseeater wrote:

Sorry, that was the wording of the post. What I was meant to ask was: Why is this happening on Scratch, isn't there supposed to be measures against this?

s'all cool

of course there are a surplus of defenses against spam, including but not limited to:

• email confirmation (newest)
  
• CAPTCHA thingies
  
• longer waits between posts
  
• stricter filters
  
• an army of Scratchers
  
• technology
  
• things
  
• the elderly
  
• nuclear warheads
  
• sick montage parodies
  
• a hidden pool of cute cuddly sharks with death lazers
  

I'm kidding for about 2 of those

but even with all those defenses in place spam still can get through. you wouldn't believe how technology has evolved, as well the human mind's ability to circumvent such measures.

cheeseeater wrote:

~snip~

Actually, all 10 digit numbers with dashes should be blocked. Though I do see the problem…

spam wrote:

- is blocked? Let's use
=
_
~
etc.

CatsUnited wrote:

cheeseeater wrote:

~snip~

Actually, all 10 digit numbers with dashes should be blocked. Though I do see the problem…

spam wrote:

- is blocked? Let's use
=
_
~
etc.
The problem with that would be that projects that spit out a sharing code to post in the comments could be blocked.

Zro716 wrote:

cheeseeater wrote:

Sorry, that was the wording of the post. What I was meant to ask was: Why is this happening on Scratch, isn't there supposed to be measures against this?

s'all cool

of course there are a surplus of defenses against spam, including but not limited to:

• email confirmation (newest)
  
• CAPTCHA thingies
  
• longer waits between posts
  
• stricter filters
  
• an army of Scratchers
  
• technology
  
• things
  
• the elderly
  
• nuclear warheads
  
• sick montage parodies
  
• a hidden pool of cute cuddly sharks with death lazers
  

I'm kidding for about 2 of those

but even with all those defenses in place spam still can get through. you wouldn't believe how technology has evolved, as well the human mind's ability to circumvent such measures.

I'm guessing it's sick montage parodies and a hidden pool of cute cuddly sharks with death lazers. To catch spammers, you need to think like a spammer.

Zro716 wrote:

cheeseeater wrote:

Sorry, that was the wording of the post. What I was meant to ask was: Why is this happening on Scratch, isn't there supposed to be measures against this?

s'all cool

of course there are a surplus of defenses against spam, including but not limited to:

• email confirmation (newest)
  
• CAPTCHA thingies
  
• longer waits between posts
  
• stricter filters
  
• an army of Scratchers
  
• technology
  
• things
  
• the elderly
  
• nuclear warheads
  
• sick montage parodies
  
• a hidden pool of cute cuddly sharks with death lazers
  

I'm kidding for about 2 of those

but even with all those defenses in place spam still can get through. you wouldn't believe how technology has evolved, as well the human mind's ability to circumvent such measures.

Hmm… you're not kidding about the sick montage parodies, but I think you're kidding when you say nuclear warheads and the sharks with lasers on their heads.

Oh really. SCRATCH TEAM!!!

This is why we should switch to the old search.

Wow, that is awful!

I went to 800notes.com and callercomplaints.com to mass report these numbers as scams.

I even tried calling one or two from Skype. It takes about 4 whole minutes just to get off hold and then I heard the voice of a foreigner. This sounds exactly like a scam I also mass-reported: popup ads with fake virus warnings compelling users to call fake numbers.
Someone on 800notes said they were asked to give their personal information. Now I'm scared.

mathfreak231 wrote:

I went to 800notes.com and callercomplaints.com to mass report these numbers as scams.

I even tried calling one or two from Skype. It takes about 4 whole minutes just to get off hold and then I heard the voice of a foreigner. This sounds exactly like a scam I also mass-reported: popup ads with fake virus warnings compelling users to call fake numbers.
Someone on 800notes said they were asked to give their personal information. Now I'm scared.

That's awful! Honestly, something needs to be done over these phone numbers.

Zro716 wrote:

cheeseeater wrote:

Sorry, that was the wording of the post. What I was meant to ask was: Why is this happening on Scratch, isn't there supposed to be measures against this?

s'all cool

of course there are a surplus of defenses against spam, including but not limited to:

• email confirmation (newest) may be annoying. Glad I don't have to deal with it
  
• CAPTCHA thingies Yep, these block a lot of spam :P
  
• longer waits between posts Annoying
  
• stricter filters They give a lot of false positives
  
• an army of Scratchers Yaassss
  
• technology You don't say?
  
• things Wow, so descriptive
  
• the elderly Lol I think I know who you're referring to here
  
• nuclear warheads +1
  
• sick montage parodies +1337
  
• a hidden pool of cute cuddly sharks with death lazers +1000000
  

I'm kidding for about 2 of those Lemme guess, technology and things right?

but even with all those defenses in place spam still can get through. you wouldn't believe how technology has evolved, as well the human mind's ability to circumvent such measures.

Yeah, I haven't actually seen bot-based spam on Scratch for a while, but I think it's still a problem. And Scratch seriously needs to drop its google-based search. It doesn't give relevant results, causes necroposting, and makes every New Scratcher ever ask how to search for a certain user on Scratch.

I do agree. The fact that the search engine still shows the dangerous content means that scratchers can still be at risk.

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

Zro716 wrote:

cheeseeater wrote:

Sorry, that was the wording of the post. What I was meant to ask was: Why is this happening on Scratch, isn't there supposed to be measures against this?

s'all cool

of course there are a surplus of defenses against spam, including but not limited to:

• email confirmation (newest) may be annoying. Glad I don't have to deal with it
  
• CAPTCHA thingies Yep, these block a lot of spam :P
  
• longer waits between posts Annoying
  
• stricter filters They give a lot of false positives
  
• an army of Scratchers Yaassss
  
• technology You don't say?
  
• things Wow, so descriptive
  
• the elderly Lol I think I know who you're referring to here
  
• nuclear warheads +1
  
• sick montage parodies +1337
  
• a hidden pool of cute cuddly sharks with death lazers +1000000
  

I'm kidding for about 2 of those Lemme guess, technology and things right?

but even with all those defenses in place spam still can get through. you wouldn't believe how technology has evolved, as well the human mind's ability to circumvent such measures.

Yeah, I haven't actually seen bot-based spam on Scratch for a while, but I think it's still a problem. And Scratch seriously needs to drop its google-based search. It doesn't give relevant results, causes necroposting, and makes every New Scratcher ever ask how to search for a certain user on Scratch.

Agreed, and it lies about how many results until you start clicking pages…

Not to mention that it opens up a new tab in my browser. xP

I know, kind of bad reason to hate it… but it's enough to annoy me quite a bit.