[wsfii-discuss] Spammers appear to have hacked into wsfii site

Tue Oct 28 13:01:05 UTC 2008

Hi Jeff,

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 3:34 PM, jeff buderer <jeff at onevillagefoundation.org
> wrote:

> Sanjay,
>
> <snip />

> I also cced to wsfii-coord at lists.okfn.org as that is the wsfii
> coordination discussion group and this discussion might actually be more
> relevant there.

Subscribed myself to the list. Hope to carry on the discussion there and
quickly find a fix. Spam is irritating:(

Thanks,
Sanjay

>
> Jeff
>
> On Tue, 2008-10-28 at 14:32 +0530, Sanjay Bhangar wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 1:01 PM, jeff buderer
> > <jeff at onevillagefoundation.org> wrote:
> >         Vickram,
> >
> >         Anything can be broken but CAPTCHAS reduce the number of
> >         intruders.
> >
> > CAPTCHAs are a bit ugly in the sense of it being a zero-sum game - a
> > CAPTCHA gets broken, then you need to make it more obscure, upto a
> > point where its rather hard for even humans to decipher what's
> > written .. I personally prefer the option of using random questions,
> > etc. combined with some javascript spoofing techniques (not having a
> > standard submit button but a javascript onclick triggering submit,
> > etc.) which has reduced attacks from automated bots for me in the past
> > - however, none of these techniques are effective against human
> > spammers ..
> >
> >
> >         What are the other options?
> >
> > One tool that I know of, that apparently works quite well - I haven't
> > used it a lot, but am on their mailing list and it sounds like a
> > decently good project - http://akismet.com/ .
> >
> > Again, the above solutions are more in the context of "comment spam"
> > and not sure how well they translate to the problem of wiki spam ...
> >
> > Am happy to work with people on implementing any of these
> > solutions ... I think aksimet is probably worth a try as its
> > absolutely non-intrusive for the user, works by learning from the
> > community of users so you help the larger community every time you
> > find a new spammer, etc ...
> >
> > (btw, since this is my first post on the list, a quick introduction -
> > I work for http://camputer.org , very interested in wireless and am
> > friends with Vickram, in Bombay .. )
> >
> > cheers,
> > Sanjay
> >
> >
> >
> >         Jeff
> >
> >
> >         On Tue, 2008-10-28 at 02:52 +0000, Vickram Crishna wrote:
> >         > I think many such initiatives suffer for the same reason
> >         (ie, not
> >         > enough time for sysops to handle the load), in order to
> >         authenticate
> >         > genuine users. Plus of course the hassles of keeping
> >         passwords, for
> >         > the genuine users.
> >         >
> >         > Captchas can and are being broken today by public ocr
> >         service sites, I
> >         > read not so long back in Slashdot.
> >         >
> >         > Vickram
> >         > http://communicall.wordpress.com
> >         > http://vvcrishna.wordpress.com
> >         >
> >         >
> >         >
> >         >
> >         >
> >
> ______________________________________________________________________
> >         > From: Alexander List <alex at list.priv.at>
> >         > To: Discuss list on the World Summit on Free Information
> >         > Infrastructure <wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
> >         > Sent: Monday, 27 October, 2008 15:41:37
> >         > Subject: Re: [wsfii-discuss] Spammers appear to have hacked
> >         into wsfii
> >         > site
> >         >
> >         > Vickram Crishna wrote:
> >         > > Quite right. Naturally, this increases the workload for
> >         the sysop,
> >         > for
> >         > > which the only solution, imo, is to increase the number of
> >         sysops,
> >         > > with enough volunteers (3-5 is a good number) that one or
> >         the other
> >         > > takes care of it in time.
> >         >
> >         > What about only allowing authenticated users to sign
> >         up/post, and to
> >         > use
> >         > captchas to get rid of those bots?
> >         >
> >         > Alex
> >         >
> >         > _______________________________________________
> >         > wsfii-discuss mailing list
> >         > wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> >         > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wsfii-discuss
> >         >
> >         >
> >         > _______________________________________________
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> >         > wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> >         > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wsfii-discuss
> >
> >
> >
> >         _______________________________________________
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> >         wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> >         http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wsfii-discuss
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wsfii-discuss
>
>
>
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