Hilarious bots posting nonsense: what's the point?

[Bitcoinpro]

Theymos?  You've got opinions on so much.  Got any for why you can't control these?

This is already discussed in another thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1278196.0 all you have to do if you see one is click the "Report to moderator" link at the lower left side of each post made by the bot.

the  explanation in this thread is false

it would be easy to stop them

[HabBear]

How would it be easy to stop them?

Perhaps another good question is why doesn't a moderator just delete them as soon as they occur?

To the OP, if you want to reach Theymos faster you should post this to the Meta board.

[nydiacaskey01]

How would it be easy to stop them?

Perhaps another good question is why doesn't a moderator just delete them as soon as they occur?

To the OP, if you want to reach Theymos faster you should post this to the Meta board.

I think there is a bot set up already to nuke those spam bots but looks like the number of created threads and accounts overwhelm the bot of BCT, nevertheless just hit Report to Moderator so you can help clean the community. BTW this should be in Meta section.

[Kprawn]

This is not really a issue, report it and ignore it... a mod will clean them up in no time... they need to sleep and work like everyone else, so be patient. This is most probably someone

testing the anti-bot features and testing their bot's effectiveness, or some user with some kind of vendetta against the forum. We just report it and they get deleted. No harm done.

This is not a problem experienced with this forum only, other forums struggle with the same thing. 

[shorena]

Since captchas can be solved easily, how about we put up a few halting problems? Only for the first 10 posts.

No? Dont wana limit the board to people who can read code. ok, back to reporting.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Who is NLC and what is the backstory? im curious now. Btw, I have checked in the members tab, ordered in date of registration, and the registration of new bot accounts is getting out of hand:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=mlist;sort=registered;desc;start=0

Just today, there are 20 pages and most of the accounts are the same bot, easily recognizable in the nicknames.

NotLambchop https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=263109 (amongst others). Speculation troll who had his account(s) banned but seems to want his main one back and this botspam is his way of trying to do so (but it's not going to work).

He ain't heavy. He's my brother

[thejaytiesto]

Since captchas can be solved easily, how about we put up a few halting problems? Only for the first 10 posts.

No? Dont wana limit the board to people who can read code. ok, back to reporting.

I think the mods want to leave this forum as minimal as possible which includes javascript not being needed to do anything so it means if they come up with something it would be able to get resolved without needing to turn javascript on.

In the meantime im reporting as much as as I can and hope everyone else is doing so as well.

[shorena]

Since captchas can be solved easily, how about we put up a few halting problems? Only for the first 10 posts.

No? Dont wana limit the board to people who can read code. ok, back to reporting.

I think the mods want to leave this forum as minimal as possible which includes javascript not being needed to do anything so it means if they come up with something it would be able to get resolved without needing to turn javascript on.

In the meantime im reporting as much as as I can and hope everyone else is doing so as well.

Wasnt really serious with puting up halting problems. Its certainly increasing the reports counter though, but they are hardly up for longer than a few minutes.

[rebuilder]

The Bitcoin discussion subforum's 1st page is now mostly spam. I guess this is the time most of the mods are asleep.

[mexxer-2]

The Bitcoin discussion subforum's 1st page is now mostly spam. I guess this is the time most of the mods are asleep.

Patrollers can handle them, but don't expect them to check their report pages and "Show unread posts since last visit. " every minute or so. Actively report them, and the few patrollers that are active will take care of them(most of the time in less than 5 mins)
Edit: WTF, gotta say, the spam is a bit too much right now. Kill em Mitchell and xandry
Edit 2:

Most probably are. Still early in Europe and there's usually a lot of reports for me to handle when I wake up. Just spent the past 20 minutes or so handling the 100+ reports on bots alone.

Half of them must've been mine 

[hilariousandco]

The Bitcoin discussion subforum's 1st page is now mostly spam. I guess this is the time most of the mods are asleep.

Most probably are. Still early in Europe and there's usually a lot of reports for me to handle when I wake up. Just spent the past 20 minutes or so handling the 100+ reports on bots alone.

[Lauda]

Most probably are. Still early in Europe and there's usually a lot of reports for me to handle when I wake up. Just spent the past 20 minutes or so handling the 100+ reports on bots alone.

There is a small period of time when almost nobody is around. It can happen. It was not unusual for me to wake up to 20-50 reports when I had to head out really early.

Half of them must've been mine  

I sometimes wonder if you have a life or ever go to bed? Good work though.
Update:

Says someone who has spent over 140 days online on the forum  ,I wonder if that was meant to compliment me or was offensive. Just have too much energy to waste.

"Total time logged in: 250 days, 7 hours"; yeah 140 days *cough*.  Nothing offensive about "good work though".

[mexxer-2]

Half of them must've been mine  

I sometimes wonder if you have a life or ever go to bed? Good work though.

Says someone who has spent over 140 days online on the forum  ,I wonder if that was meant to compliment me or was offensive. Just have too much energy to waste.

Most probably are. Still early in Europe and there's usually a lot of reports for me to handle when I wake up. Just spent the past 20 minutes or so handling the 100+ reports on bots alone.

Thinking about it, is there any staff member from America?

[hilariousandco]

There's a few from America (and maybe more I don't know about) but even that has a few different timezones I believe but the ones that are still seem to be on a lot of the time I am but there will obviously be various overlaps with mods wherever you are in the world and some are more active than others, and some have college/full time jobs where they're afk etc.

[rebuilder]

how would the bots react to an extra input field on the posting page, one hidden from humans? I expect renaming or rearranging the fields is out of the question since that would probably break all the "good" bots here as well.

[minifrij]

how would the bots react to an extra input field on the posting page, one hidden from humans? I expect renaming or rearranging the fields is out of the question since that would probably break all the "good" bots here as well.

This would probably stop them for a short time, though I expect that the bots would be quick to adapt and find a way around. It could be good as a temporary solution while the staff find a more permanent one.

[hilariousandco]

how would the bots react to an extra input field on the posting page, one hidden from humans? I expect renaming or rearranging the fields is out of the question since that would probably break all the "good" bots here as well.

Not sure if I understand you correctly but if it was hidden from humans how would anyone post or get around it themselves?

This would probably stop them for a short time, though I expect that the bots would be quick to adapt and find a way around. It could be good as a temporary solution while the staff find a more permanent one.

We're discussing things but it's about finding a comprimise with only minimal restrictions to everyone else which isn't easy.

[minifrij]

Not sure if I understand you correctly but if it was hidden from humans how would anyone post or get around it themselves?

I think he means similar to a honeypot. For example, create two 'Subject' bars when making a post, have one with the original name value ("subject") which is hidden to the user using CSS, then have another with a random string as it's name (Just a random SHA256 hash would do; the name doesn't need to have any significance) which is the one visible to the user and sends the actual subject value to the server to post. Any bots which have not been adjusted would submit to the original bar named "subject" and would be unable to make a post, but any user would be able to use the new, random bar fine and it would make no difference to their normal posting experience.

It would, at best, be a day or two before the bots could re-adjust to this, as more computational power would likely have to be involved to find the correct one (especially if there are several of the random value bars, only one being visible to the user), though it could buy some time for a more in-depth solution to be implemented.

[botany]

Can't the mods preemptively nuke the accounts?
Based on the IP addresses from which these accounts were registered, and given that these accounts were probably registered in a bunch, it should be evident which accounts belong to this spammer. What stops the mods from nuking all those accounts before they start posting?

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Can't the mods preemptively nuke the accounts?
Based on the IP addresses from which these accounts were registered, and given that these accounts were probably registered in a bunch, it should be evident which accounts belong to this spammer. What stops the mods from nuking all those accounts before they start posting?

Obviously he's savvy enough to use VPN and TOR and whatnot.