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Welcome to our newest member, NealTeel7 |
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04-05-2021, 11:13 PM
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Super Moderator
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Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Counting my blessings!
Posts: 28,160
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John
The amount of spam sure was overwhelming to say the least. GC was under attack by an army of spammers. Both bots & people (via spam operations in very low wage countries).
Some spam operations even have people assist the bots directly in getting past anti-spam setups (there was an article in Wired magazine about that years ago).
What you saw was probably only a small fraction of the total spam that got through. GC's mods team was amazingly helpful & effective in fighting off the spam bots. It's really quite exhausting, though, especially when the spam is/was at its worst.
A rough estimate is that there were probably hundreds of thousands of spam messages.
And even that was only from a fraction of the spam bots that attempted to get on to GC. Last I checked it was getting close to 10 million entries in the section of the database for the automated anti-spam setup on GC.
Even with as much as is setup on GC to block spam bots it is still not enough at times. Recently it seems we've just been lucky to not be targeted as much. As things are, the flood of spam could return at any time.
The good news, though, is that after (or as part of) the upcoming forum software change ( http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...d.php?t=247673 ) I'll be working to implement a new anti-spam setup which should permanently solve the spam issue, if all things go right.
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WOW!! I knew that there was a lot of spam, but hundreds of thousands? I think moe.ron and FSUZeta took care of many thousands of spam posts alone!
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~ *~"ADPi until I die!"~*~
♥Proud to be a Macon Magnolia ♥
"He who is not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan
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04-06-2021, 02:20 AM
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Moderator
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: The Big Easy
Posts: 9,936
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheerio
Neighbors still have outdoor Xmas decorations up. Perhaps they're celebrating April Fools Day this Thursday?
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My father referred to Christmas wreaths left up after Ash Wednesday as "Easter wreaths".
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AEΦ ... Multa Corda, Una Causa ... Celebrating Over 100 Years of Sisterhood
Have no place I can be since I found Serenity, but you can't take the sky from me...
Only those who risk going too far, find out how far they can go.
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04-06-2021, 05:44 PM
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Administrator
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Join Date: Aug 1999
Location: NJ, USA
Posts: 2,131
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Quote:
Originally Posted by honeychile
WOW!! I knew that there was a lot of spam, but hundreds of thousands? I think moe.ron and FSUZeta took care of many thousands of spam posts alone!
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Very rough estimate. I'm thinking it was somewhere between 250-350k spam posts or so. Cumulative, not all at once or over a short period of time. But there were multiple periods of time where the spam was concentrated, which I'm sure we all remember how bad those times were.
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John Hammell
Network Admin, GreekChat.com
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04-08-2021, 05:48 PM
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GreekChat Member
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: nasty and inebriated
Posts: 5,770
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John
The amount of spam sure was overwhelming to say the least. GC was under attack by an army of spammers. Both bots & people (via spam operations in very low wage countries).
Some spam operations even have people assist the bots directly in getting past anti-spam setups (there was an article in Wired magazine about that years ago).
What you saw was probably only a small fraction of the total spam that got through. GC's mods team was amazingly helpful & effective in fighting off the spam bots. It's really quite exhausting, though, especially when the spam is/was at its worst.
A rough estimate is that there were probably hundreds of thousands of spam messages.
And even that was only from a fraction of the spam bots that attempted to get on to GC. Last I checked it was getting close to 10 million entries in the section of the database for the automated anti-spam setup on GC.
Even with as much as is setup on GC to block spam bots it is still not enough at times. Recently it seems we've just been lucky to not be targeted as much. As things are, the flood of spam could return at any time.
The good news, though, is that after (or as part of) the upcoming forum software change ( http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...d.php?t=247673 ) I'll be working to implement a new anti-spam setup which should permanently solve the spam issue, if all things go right.
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Thank you for this information. I had no idea how bad things were behind the scenes, though I do appreciate the incredible amount of work that the moderating team puts in.
__________________
And he took a cup of coffee and gave thanks to God for it, saying, 'Each of you drink from it. This is my caffeine, which gives life.'
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Today, 06:07 AM
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GreekChat Member
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 13,039
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Smh @ my home state. I’m glad I’m a vet and not a police officer.
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Phi Sigma Society
"Understanding is the fountain of life to those who have it" -Proverbs 16:22 "You couldn't make a more incorrect statement if you spent a week trying" -TonyB06
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