Hi there. I found a novice way to reduce spammers on my site from a few hundred to less than ten a month. When they register and add all their marketing or viral links I do not actualy delete or ban them anymore, I make them terrorist and change their added content with more terrorist type content. So their profiles might end up showing things like "Have explosives, the president will die very soon." On my front page I do openly and publicaly warn that any spammer or hacker will be scrutenized by various inteligence organizations and that they will be in for shite guarenteed. Think about it. Threatening to blow up an embassy is a very serious threat and our websites are constantly monitored daily even. I have no doubt. I can not find a spammer or hacker, but I am sure the CIA or Chinese Inteligence service can. Think about it ;-) Can anyone build a "Make Spammer a Terrorist" pluggin? Maybe a badge that verifies it as Authentic too that can display on the front page?
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You must log in to post replies.That's a bad idea. I strongly recommend to stop doing that. Use the available plugins for stopping bot spammers (reCaptca, Webgalli antispammer plugin, math captcha)
If such content is found on your website you (not them) will be under investigation. This could get you in serious problems.
Rodolfo Hernandez
Arvixe/Elgg Community Liaison
What happened to the guy who decided to do the same thing except use kiddie porn? Is he out of jail yet?
Thanks for the reply. I do agree with you and understand the full implications as well. This however works great for me, and it is nice to feel that at last I can give some hacker/spammer something to worry about. Watching an online profile dissapear after changing a spam page with an offer to sell enriched uranium to aid a revolt in China is absolutely great!!
Clever idea, but what I'm going to say is not what you want to hear. Such a plugin would hurt Elgg and those of us who use it innocuously and have users in a country you just mentioned. And I tend to agree with rjc too and think he should have capitalized YOU. You might disagree, but this site has been extremely slow the past few days from here - there is always a reason for things like that. I don't want to play games with the pros. But that's your choice.
Most jurisdictions have laws making the website responsible for the content on it, regardless of what you put in a disclaimer.
Further, considering that spammers do massive amounts of linking back to your site, what you're actually doing is guaranteeing that standard users who innocently follow those links (and some people do) will think your site is some sort of terrorist haven. This could lead to you being reported to their local law enforcement.
Bear in mind that if your domain is registered to you, this means anyone can find you to bring a lawsuit or criminal case against you.
Furthermore, may I note that while spammers are terribly annoying, most human-driven spamming is done by victims. Spam-farms in certain unnamed countries have "workers" who work for a horrifically low wage, for long hours, with poor working conditions (I've heard that some are even forced to use Windows and Internet Explorer!). And those operating from certain other countries are often trafficked, barely paid anything at all, and may frequently suffer threats or acts of violence. Indeed, since you're potentially putting <country name redacted>'s notably unpleasant police onto them by using keywords that trigger various web-trawling police units attentions, I suspect that their "employers" aren't going to be too happy with their "employees". Not a pleasant thought.
The "spammer" who you are labelling a "terrorist" is probably just some ordinary person, like you. The difference is that they are likely a victim of far worse than the annoyance you get from their spam.
In summary: making life hard for people who profit from spam? Great. Making life even harder for the poor <swearing redacted> who are effectively forced to work from those profitting? Not so great.
Ha...Forced to use windows and IE...LOL