Re: [wiki] fake account spam

[Philipp Gesang <Philipp.Gesang@alumni.uni-heidelberg.de>]

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···<date: 2013-04-05, Friday>···<from: Mojca Miklavec>···

> On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:43 PM, Philipp Gesang  wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I’d like to draw your attention to the wiki. The spammers appear
> > to know the solution to the current entry barrier “What is
> > usually the last command in a ConTeXt source file (without the
> > backslash)?”, and the number of fake accounts is growing fast:
> >
> >   http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Special:Log/newusers
> >
> > They don’t, however, seem to vandalize yet, so I guess the postal
> > code of Hasselt is unbreakable with today’s technology ;-)

I spoke too soon (or maybe those guys read the list and view this
discussion as a challenge?):

  http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Special:Contributions/TrenaLege


> > Nevertheless the account spam is messing up the recent changes
> > feed:
> >
> >   http://wiki.contextgarden.net/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&feed=rss
> >
> > Even if it’s not urgent, may I suggest we collect possible
> > replacements for the current question? I can’t image the damage
> > those accounts would do once they figure out how to post links.
> 
> It would probably be best to:
> 
> 1.) Remove all those account (attention: some users are actually
> legitimate and contributed valid content).
> 
> 2.) Find out if there is any problematic IP and block those IPs.

Careful as their IPs could be spoofed, you might end up blocking
innocent users.

> 3.) Install something like
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmAccount and/or maybe
> use both captcha and some context-specific question (honestly: if
> users don't know how to answer some slightly more tricky question,
> they shouldn't be able to get the account). We could use questions
> like "Last name of president of ConTeXt User Group."

This could discourage people from fixing trivial stuff like
misspellings. Maybe add a note that they should drop a mail to
the list if they don’t know the answer.

Regards
Philipp


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