Ive been away for a bit - has Unicornation had Pharma-Spam?

[Newsles]

Just thought I'd ask, as another forum I contribute to (nothing whatever to do with music - except very loosely) has been plagued by single posts with links to Viagra and other stuff much more dodgy. They dont seem to be able to kick it in the teeth.

I mention this because the look of the board is very similar to this one - I dont know how these things work but are there a number of appearance "kits" and so-on? Or does it depend who's providing the site in the first place?

Anyway, it's been plagueing the forum I mentioned, so if anyone has any tips on putting the lid on it, then please let me know!

How is everyone BTW? Relocated my set-up to a dedicated area so maybe one of these days I'll actually have something finished I can post in the appropriate section for assasination.

Les

[James Steele]

Hi Les. The board runs on phpBB. I've gone through some of the issues you describe and there are some things you can do.

First, enable the options in the phpBB software that require user confirmation. There are options that make it required for a prospective member to type the graphic characters he sees to weed out automated scripts. Also there is another option that in order to be approved, a prospective member has to first reply to an email that the software sends to him/her before the account is activated, thus weeding out phony email addresses.

Also, I discovered these spammers were frequently using a few specific domains in the email addresses they provided-- like mail.ru, inbox.ru, etc. I banned those domains. You cannot sign up for membership here with an email address at those and other "problem" domains. I know of one board that has gone so far as to prohibit people with yahoo.com or hotmail.com email addresses from joining as well since it's so easy to create an account there.

You also have to be vigilant. Every time there is a post like that here, I first note the IP address that posted it and add it to the banned IP list. I then delete the user, but not before noting the domain of the email address they used, and if appropriate, I add that to the ban list as well. So far this is working. I think these spammers work very much like car thieves. If there are a number of cars in the parking lot, and one is harder to break into, they move on to the one that's easier.

[Newsles]

Thanks for that information James. I'll pass it on to the Webmaster. To be honest I'm surprised they don't know about this - then again maybe they do and are still having problems.

They are asking us to report spam posts straight away and I think most forum members are up to speed with that, but the issue persists. It IS phpBB I believe, so hopefully there'll be something in your advice they havent' cottoned on to yet.

Thanks again

Les

[Mr_Clifford]

So much for the much-hailed new era of 'freedom of expression' without oppressive censorship etc. etc. that was to be the internet. We just ended up getting spammed about growing our Johnson's and buying porn. Some things haven't changed since the beginning of the human race....

Gotta go..... seems I may have won $50,000....

[Newsles]

You think you've got problems - someone in Nigeria wants to come and see me about a million pound loan!!

[James Steele]

Hey... I feel sorry for all of you guys. My life is good. As we speak there is a 19 year old college girl in Russia who digs me and says I can watch her web cam for FREE! On top of that there's a some big minister or something who needs MY bank account to move 24 MILLION DOLLARS out of his country and I get to keep $2.4 MILLION bucks!! I guess I'm just lucky!!!

[Newsles]

Hands off James. She's mine - she said so!!!

Having said that, Nguye from Nigeria's getting jealous so maybe you can have her after all!

[monkey man]

G'day, guys
Glad to see you've all forgotten Svetlana!

She was lookin' for a real (American?) man a month ago.
Of course, our stockpile of testosterone on legs, Shooshie, jumped at her.
He came straight out with the "Where have you been all my life?" stuff.
Me, I just told her I was hairy and walked on my nuckles.
Next thing I know, she loves monkeys.
What an animal!

Naaa na na naaa na
I-'ve got Svet laaa na

She, still wants to move to America one day, so look out!

Hands off James. She's mine - she said so!!!
Having said that, Nguye from Nigeria's getting jealous so maybe you can have her after all

Please can you try to keep Nguye up there in Central Scotland, Newsles.
Svetlana won't even let me look at Nigerian girls. They're locals back-home!

[Shooshie]

G'day, guys
Glad to see you've all forgotten Svetlana!

She was lookin' for a real (American?) man a month ago.
Of course, our stockpile of testosterone on legs, Shooshie, jumped at her.
He came straight out with the "Where have you been all my life?" stuff.

Man, I thought I was going to get myself a mail-order bride. I don't know what my WIFE would have thought of that, but hey, this lady was willing! Did you see how she almost addressed me personally? I mean, she said "to whom it may concern" or something like that, but she did find this forum! That's reducing the field from 6 billion to something like 20,000. I take that as a direct way of saying "I have the hots for you, Shooshie!" But alas. She disappeared. Well, if she's down there in Oz, I guess that's ok. I mean, it's not so far from Texas. What if she'd gone to the moon? Now THAT would be far away. I know Svetlana will be back.

Er... tell me, Monkey Man. Is she under... let's say... 130 lbs.? That's about 59 kilos. If she's more than that, I'd guess she must be pretty happy there. Tell her not to hurry.


Shooshie

[James Steele]

...but she did find this forum! That's reducing the field from 6 billion to something like 20,000.

That's cuz chicks dig guys who use Digital Performer. Nothing makes their hearts flutter and knees wobble like a man who can whisper sweet nothings like: "You know, just being in the same room with you my darling, makes me forget that I need to go into my studio and experiment with Work Quanta and Max Work Percent. You guys have my permission to use that one...

[Shooshie]

...but she did find this forum! That's reducing the field from 6 billion to something like 20,000.

That's cuz chicks dig guys who use Digital Performer. Nothing makes their hearts flutter and knees wobble like a man who can whisper sweet nothings like: "You know, just being in the same room with you my darling, makes me forget that I need to go into my studio and experiment with Work Quanta and Max Work Percent. You guys have my permission to use that one...

That's odd... my wife gave me permission to use that one, too, next time I'm out somewhere. Wow. How exciting! I feel just like Jethro on Beverly Hillbillies when he became a double-naught spy. A regular chick magnet!

Shooshie

[monkey man]

...this lady was willing!

Was she, now?

Did you see how she almost addressed me personally? I mean, she said "to whom it may concern" or something like that, but she did find this forum!

No, I missed that one.
Undressed you personally, hey?
She didn't tell me she was so close to you.

I take that as a direct way of saying "I have the hots for you, Shooshie!"

Do you now?

But alas. She disappeared.

Too bad, Romeo.

if she's down there in Oz, I guess that's ok. I mean, it's not so far from Texas.

Too close for my liking.

What if she'd gone to the moon? Now THAT would be far away. I know Svetlana will be back.

Yeah, what if.
Keep dreamin; I'm sendin' her to... the moon.
Svetlana reckons they were looking for a monkey stand-in for ongoing local tests for the International Space Station program.
I volunteered her and, well, when they saw her eyes...
I'm coppin' 10 dozen free bananas a week!
If she's a good girl (she has to pretend she's a monkey), she's an automatic selection for the next ISS launch.
Can you say, "mucho bananas"?

Er... tell me, Monkey Man. Is she under... let's say... 130 lbs.? That's about 59 kilos. If she's more than that, I'd guess she must be pretty happy there. Tell her not to hurry.

Well, she's got that unique combination of elegance, femininity and stunning, classic Russian beauty.
She's 19 years old, 60 glorious kilos, 5'10", 35-22-35, blond, blue eyed, and has an IQ of around 25.
Hey, you can't have it all; 6 out of 7 ain't bad, after all.

Besides, d'ya want a matron or d'ya wanna eat?

[monkey man]

...but she did find this forum! That's reducing the field from 6 billion to something like 20,000.

That's cuz chicks dig guys who use Digital Performer. Nothing makes their hearts flutter and knees wobble like a man who can whisper sweet nothings like: "You know, just being in the same room with you my darling, makes me forget that I need to go into my studio and experiment with Work Quanta and Max Work Percent. You guys have my permission to use that one...

You're spot-on with regards to the DP-phrases thing, Jimbo!
I'm collecting them for when I get lucky one day.
The first one is,"Oh, my God!"
If you promise not to tell Shooshie any of them (he seems to do just fine, thank you very much!), you can try these...

1) Honey, I need somewhere to paste my clipboard. Please?
2) How does a non-destructive merge sound, baby?
3) I promise it'll only be a short fade, then we can rump... er, ramp it up again.
4) Sweety, looks like we'll need to calibrate our input/output timing again.
5) Compression... expansion... compression... expansion...
6) I'm inserting side-chains for de-sexing, er, de-essing, doll.

OK, so the last one sux, but I'm figurin', with the butta I's got here, I probably won't even make it to #4.
Of course, that's assuming I ever get lucky.

[James Steele]

Okay... as one of the guilty parties myself... maybe it's time to ease this thread back before we start snapping each other with gym towels.

[monkey man]

Okay... as one of the guilty parties myself... maybe it's time to ease this thread back before we start snapping each other with gym towels.

Snap! C-r-aack!
Sorry James.
This monkey's getting near its bedtime.

Pharma-spam, shmarma-spam, Svetlana-spam.
That Russian gal sent Svetlana-spam. She started it!

... maybe it's time to ease this thread back...

To... where?
FWIW, I didn't think we'd strayed much at all, considering the content of these things, and the starting-point.
It seems to me that our only other alternative is something like a web admin or HTML discussion...

Still, you'd probably prefer not to see UnicorNation sink rapidly into the proverbial gutter.
I mean, just 2 weeks ago we were "in the toilet" with that iPod thingy. I was worried then.
Good ol' Jimbo!
Again, I'm sorry, mate.
It's bedtime for this naughty monkey.