[ckan-discuss] Spam on the data hub

[Richard Cyganiak]

On 7 Aug 2012, at 19:30, Rufus Pollock wrote:
>> Looks like there was another big spam attack on the Data Hub a couple of days ago. There are some 2000 spam datasets. Look at the revision list, circa pages 16 to 121. Looks like it all happened between August 1 and August 3.
> 
> We discovered it Friday morning and after various unsuccessful
> attempts to block shut it down Friday evening.
> 
>> I started cleaning some of it up, but had to give up when I realized just how much it is.
> 
> Yes :-/
> 
>> The user names and dataset IDs follow a predictable pattern, so I guess someone with access to the backend could script something to clean this up?
> 
> Exactly. We're working on this and it should be gone in the next day or so.

Ok. Looks like it's still there, but good to hear you're working on it.

> I think the only real solution is vigilance and dealing quick with bad
> attacks like this one as quickly as possible when they happen.

A good first step would be to automatically log all edits to an IRC channel, and ensure that some people with sysadmin privileges actually hang out there.

Best,
Richard