Ask Slashdot: Using a Sandbox To Deal With Spambots? 167
shellster_dude writes "Slashdot is certainly no stranger to the problem of spam bots. While blocking a spam bot may seem like the best solution, it is likely that the spammer will simply re-register with a different name. While trying to solve this dilemma on my own forums, I had an epiphany. What if, instead of blocking a spam bot, I could mark a spammer, and then hide all their comments from everyone else? The spammer could continue to go their merry way, spamming to their heart's content. When they visit the forum, they see their spam comments correctly placed in the threads, but their comments would only be visible to them. Thus, an effective sandbox which would prevent them from registering a new user once they had been 'blocked.' Are any other Slashdotters familiar with this technique? Does any software currently use this technique?"
Old Idea (Score:4, Informative)
Old idea that doesn't fix much because spammers change accounts after 1-20 posts anyway.
www.aftonbladet.se is using this, major media site (Score:3, Informative)
This comment is used extensively at major media outlets such at Swedish' tabloid "www.aftonbladet.se." Facebook is used to register users.
When a user is perceived as spamming - or writing opinions that are unwelcome - the user is marked, and simply not displayed to other visitors. But the user himself does not know, and keeps spamming.
Evil. Pure evil.
hellbanning. (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellbanning
Reddit (Score:5, Informative)
Reddit does something like this.
Shadow Ban (Score:5, Informative)
The practice goes by several other names I can't recall, but I know it as a "shadow ban"
Basically, you tick a box and nobody but that poster can see their nonsense.
Some forum software already includes the feature, others require a plugin or a roll-your-own solution.
Re:I will sell you this solution already debugged! (Score:5, Informative)
Because it will be trivial for a spammer to check his posts from another account?
Reddit Does (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Shadow Ban (Score:5, Informative)
Drupal has a module to do this to put trolls in their own "cave"
http://drupal.org/project/cave [drupal.org]
Allow posting right away, but moderate... (Score:4, Informative)
Replace the forum's captcha with one of a higher grade, e.g. Recaptcha
Or eliminate it altogether, since it doesn't help and really pisses off users.
Requiring new users to be registered and await activation before being able to post.
Instead of this allow anyone to post right away, but do not allow the first few posts to be seen until they have been verified to be valid by a human. Delegate some of this verification to your most active users.
Make sure Google etc can't see it. (Score:5, Informative)
The really important thing is to make sure Google (and the other search engines and ad services, if you care about them) can't see the spam. That's the real objective of the spammers, and those that bother checking may find that spamming you is less effective in fixing their page ranks.
Re:I will sell you this solution already debugged! (Score:5, Informative)
This technique is widely used against trolls on various Internet forums. It is often called 'Hellbanning' [lmgtfy.com]
Re:Yes, it has been done (Score:4, Informative)
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Recently, there was a spate of spam on slashdot about antivirus software. IIRC, in a single day there were eight instances/variants of the same spam on a single discussion alone [and more on other discussions on the same day]. Different spiels, accounts, AC's.
Such aggressive spamming can [realistically] only be dealt with by the site itself (e.g. filtering by content). The content trigger was probably easy, as each spam message would feature the product name no less than 10 times.
I haven't seen the particular spam recently, so I'm guessing something was done about it.