[Newbie scrutiny instead of jail] Every new user's first post: loyce.club/patrol

[LoyceV]

LoyceV, I like this idea very much. Can we have a timestamp (posting time) for each post as well?

I don't keep the exact time of each post, only the time I scrape it. This is usually a few seconds later. I've added it (Amsterdam time).

Suggestion: Make links within posts un-clickable.

Done!
After some searching, I added the following code to loyce.club/patrol/theymos.css:

Code:

/* The following code came from https://css-tricks.com/how-to-disable-links/ (so not from theymos) to disable accidentally clicking on potential phisting links */
    .ul {
	  pointer-events: none;
    }

I like this solution, the forum consistently uses <a class="ul" href=", so I can quite easily disable all links without editing the original HTML-code for each post.

If someone is interested in the links posted they could follow the post number hyperlink back to the forum and check it here. If it is a spam post which would likely already be deleted, they can always check it on archive (although, there's little reason to want to do so).

Or just manually copy/paste the link into a browser

Update: quotes and image links are still clickable.

[1715034069]

1715034069

[1715034069]

1715034069

[1715034069]

1715034069

[1715034069]

1715034069

[Upgrade00]

Or just manually copy/paste the link into a browser

Thanks for the quick response. Of course manually copying and pasting would be the easiest response, but I was considering a situation where hyperlink was used and it appeared as the personalized text not the original link, wasn't sure how exactly it would appear.

Update: quotes and image links are still clickable.

Well newbies can't post images, so na harm there I guess.
By quotes, do you man quoted replies of others?

[LoyceV]

I was considering a situation where hyperlink was used and it appeared as the personalized text not the original link, wasn't sure how exactly it would appear.

Good point, those require looking at the page source, or my archive.

Well newbies can't post images, so na harm there I guess.

It could still be a link to malware (say a directory called image.jpg so the browser opens image.jpg/index.html) but I haven't seen them yet. If someone clicks an image link and gets malware, I expect them to be smart enough not to download it.

By quotes, do you man quoted replies of others?

Yes. Apparently those use a different tag. That's fine, it links to the forum anyway.

[hosseinimr93]

Suggestion: Make links within posts un-clickable.

Done!

Now, it's impossible to find posts like the one mentioned by TheBeardedBaby in this topic.
For finding such hidden links, I usually hover the mouse cursor over the links and check them at bottom of my broswer without opening them.
Despite of this, I agree with disabling links.

My suggestion is to replace the links with tooltips, so that the real link is shown in a text box when you hover the mouse cursor over the disabled link. Off course, I don't know whether it's possible or not.

[LoyceV]

For finding such hidden links, I usually hover the mouse cursor over the links and check them at bottom of my broswer without opening them.

I thought of that after my change too.

My suggestion is to replace the links with tooltips, so that the real link is shown in a text box when you hover the mouse cursor over the disabled link.

If anyone has the CSS for this, that would be really cool

[FatFork]

For finding such hidden links, I usually hover the mouse cursor over the links and check them at bottom of my broswer without opening them.

I thought of that after my change too.

My suggestion is to replace the links with tooltips, so that the real link is shown in a text box when you hover the mouse cursor over the disabled link.

If anyone has the CSS for this, that would be really cool

I don't know about tooltips (at least not without javascript) but you can add this to CSS to display the contents of the href tag. You'll probably want to add some CSS selector in front as this applies to the entire document. Replace the square brackets with something else if you don't like them.

Code:

a::after {
     content: " [" attr(href) "]";
}

[LoyceV]

I don't know about tooltips (at least not without javascript) but you can add this to CSS to display the contents of the href tag. You'll probably want to add some CSS selector in front as this applies to the entire document.

Sample: https://loyce.club/patrol/test.html
This looks terrible, and I don't know enough about CSS to fix this.

[FatFork]

I don't know about tooltips (at least not without javascript) but you can add this to CSS to display the contents of the href tag. You'll probably want to add some CSS selector in front as this applies to the entire document.

Sample: https://loyce.club/patrol/test.html
This looks terrible, and I don't know enough about CSS to fix this.

Just give me a second...

[TryNinja]

Sample: https://loyce.club/patrol/test.html
This looks terrible, and I don't know enough about CSS to fix this.

It does indeed.

At least do something like this:

Code:

.post a::after {
    content: " [" attr(href) "]";
    color: #666;
}

Makes it readable and doesn't break the rest of the page.

[FatFork]

Dammit! I can display href content in the tooltip but I can't find a way to display the tooltip with pointer-events disabled. Anyway, here's CSS so maybe someone has an idea (TryNinja?). I've added CSS selectors to apply only to posts.

Code:

.post a.ul {
  position: relative; 
  z-index: 2;
/*  pointer-events: none; */
}
/* hide the tooltip by default */
.post a.ul:before,
.post a.ul:after {
  visibility: hidden;
  opacity: 0;
  pointer-events: none;
}

/* place tooltip above the element */
.post a.ul:before {
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 150%;
  left: 50%;
  margin-bottom: 5px;
  margin-left: -80px;
  padding: 7px;
  width: 200px;
  -webkit-border-radius: 3px;
  -moz-border-radius: 3px;
  border-radius: 3px;
  background-color: #000;
  background-color: hsla(0, 0%, 20%, 0.9);
  color: #fff;
  content: attr(href);
  text-align: center;
  font-size: 12px;
  line-height: 1.2;
}

/* make tooltip look like a speech bubble */
.post a.ul:after {
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 150%;
  left: 50%;
  margin-left: -5px;
  width: 0;
  border-top: 5px solid #000;
  border-top: 5px solid hsla(0, 0%, 20%, 0.9);
  border-right: 5px solid transparent;
  border-left: 5px solid transparent;
  content: " ";
  font-size: 0;
  line-height: 0;
}

/* show tooltip on hover */
.post a.ul:hover:before,
.post a.ul:hover:after {
  visibility: visible;
  opacity: 1;
}

@TryNinja you are missing a class selector in your code. It should be

Code:

.post a::after {

[LoyceV]

At least do something like this:

It's an improvement, but now the gray links can't be selected. And it still makes the posts messy.

Dammit! I can display href content in the tooltip but I can't find a way to display the tooltip with pointer-events disabled.

This is currently running on loyce.club/patrol/test.html. The tooltip kinda defeats the purpose if the URL is still visible on the bottom of my browser.

I won't change this (yet). A tooltip would be perfect, but I don't think anything less than that is worth messing up the posts this much when this spam is still very rare.

[nullius]

Objections:

• It won’t work.  This is trivial for spambot authors to work around.  All that a bot needs to do is to make one post which will have a high probability of passing human review from someone who is not following the thread in which the post is made.  The old spammer trick of copying and pasting an earlier post in a long thread can be fully automated—as can a text spinner, to prevent catching that with a bot, too.

What I predicted, I have now observed in the wild:  A spambot account starts with a few posts that look plausible when viewed out of context, with text that looks copied and pasted from somewhere.

• Nuke user: N/A in topic #0 by member #2900957

Meta Log

DateTime	Action	Detail
12/18/2020 12:28:01 AM	Changed to Archived status	Nuke user

Spamfighter advice:  Never unfollow old threads.  Context is your friend.  You best know the threads in which you yourself have actively participated.

I caught this one because its second post was on an old thread that is still on my watchlist.  The post was fully grammatical, and it did not contain any links (not even hidden links).  Nobody would report that as spam, let alone as a spambot automated post.

Because I remembered the context of the thread, I immediately detected that the post made no sense:  Its content was totally irrelevant to the subject matter of the thread.  It was not related to any of the prior posts in the 13-page thread—not even as a topic-drifting side discussion!  But if you were to view the post without reading the whole thread, then you would not see it as spam.  It doesn’t look like spam.

Whereupon I examined the account’s post history, and I found that its first post was of the same nature:  More or less grammatical, no links, sensible within its four corners, and totally irrelevant to the context of the thread.  Read that post, and ask yourself if you would report it.  Then, view the context and ask again.

A list for scrutinizing each account’s first post (or even its first few posts) would not catch this.

I can think of some easy ways for the spambot authors to attempt blending into the context.  For obvious reasons, I don’t want to explain.  Suffice it to say, an intelligent reader who has actively participated in a discussion has the best vantage point for catching any automated tricks.  —Unless the spambot authors were somehow to make their bots write good, original posts that contribute to the substance of discussions!  That would not be a bad outcome.

[LoyceV]

This project got stuck on a post without userID. I don't know what happened there.
I only saw it after 3 days. It works again.

[FatFork]

This project got stuck on a post without userID. I don't know what happened there.
I only saw it after 3 days. It works again.

Is it possible that the scraper was trying to get a post that had been deleted in the meantime?
I see a deleted post in the modlog.

Delete reply: Re: Build a bitcoin app for the tonido app store and win an ipod touch ? in topic #3110 by member #2911613

[LoyceV]

Is it possible that the scraper was trying to get a post that had been deleted in the meantime?

Only if Recent Posts showed the post without the username.

[LoyceV]

I've reduced the update frequency from once a minute to once every 5 minutes.

[LoyceV]

The 1000 first posts cover only one week. I would have expected most of those users to be new users, but it turns out many of them use an older account (which means they just made the first post since I started this topic 5 months ago).

[The Sceptical Chymist]

The 1000 first posts cover only one week. I would have expected most of those users to be new users, but it turns out many of them use an older account (which means they just made the first post since I started this topic 5 months ago).

I know you posted this a month ago, but I just noticed it and find it an interesting fact.  Any idea what's going on with that?  I'm thinking many of them are account farmers, but who knows.  I can't think of another reason why someone would register an account and wait that long to make their first post--and when that's happening with a number of accounts, it makes me a bit suspicious.

The best way I suggested is to provides a bot that can put human to test to be sure that an account user is not a bot but a human.

Oh, you mean like the captcha thing that the forum already has?

[LoyceV]

Any idea what's going on with that?  I'm thinking many of them are account farmers, but who knows.  I can't think of another reason why someone would register an account and wait that long to make their first post--and when that's happening with a number of accounts, it makes me a bit suspicious.

I can think of legit reasons, such as a user who's trying to get a technical problem solved. But if I look at the 10 latest entries, I get this:
Freshly joined altcoin spammer
Freshly joined Twitter spammer
2 years old account creating a 2 word topic
7 years old account posting PhoenixMiner which may or may not be malware
Fresly joined generic altcoin shitposter on a tech board
Freshly joined Telegram spammer
Freshly joined Telegram spammer, in the same topic as the previous user
Fresly joined plagiarism, creating a few topics, no doubt hoping for a quick Merit
3.5 years old account posting in Italian << This one looks like a real user, I've Merited his post.
Freshly joined account posting his username and one Portuguese word

This is more or less as I expected. Real users are the rare exception.

[LoyceV]

Bump into 2022! I stumbled upon this cronjob and had totally forgotten about it. It still works, but I set updates to be less frequent (every 20 minutes).

Since I started this, 185,433 users have made at least one post.

Bump

Bump!

Bump! Go report some spam