Forums back, avatars lagging behind.

[Brakk]

Okay, we are back!

Sorry for the day of troubles, but it appears someone did some bad things to our forums, taking advantage of security holes in the old version of SMF-forums that I was running.  It's not their fault, they had plugged the hole, I just hadn't upgraded in a long time (ever).  This didn't cause US a problem, but it did spike our CPU usage for our hosts at Lunarpages.  Since this is a virtual machine, they did the right thing and shut down the forums to other users on the same machine would not get bogged down as well.  Unfortunately they set the settings on that whole folder to chmod 000, and then told me to upgrade them.  This led to lots of confusion as I can't even SEE the files at that access level much less edit them.  Anyway, fresh install later (slowed horribly by a very untimely local ISP problem on our end) and here we are.

All should be well now except I need to get access our old attachments directory so I can get the avatars working.  Don't bother re-applying an avatar right now as I am hoping they will be up and running as we left them soon.  I will let you know in a new post if the old avatars are a lost cause (doubtful).

[Erebethor]

If the excellent Avatars done by Brasse are all gonna have to be again, who's gonna tell her? Not me, thats for sure!
Ereb

[Brasse]

Heheh, no worries there, as I actually have them all on my computer.
It's just a matter of re-uploading them if the provider cannot transfer that file for us.
;-)#

[Arhen]

Hey all

well I'm sure glad the forums are back!!

but is there anything we can do to block those idiotic spammers that keep on posting stupid things? I mean it was bad enough getting spam tells in EQ2 back in the day now we're reliving the glory days on the forums lol noooooo make them stop!!

hate spammer...

Take care all,
Arhen.

[Brasse]

Unless we go to a system where a HUMAN (or Dwarf) has to approve each and every applicant, no.

I suspect that it was a similar spammer that led to the forums being shut down as they were, but now all they can do is spam things, not break them.

We've had some pretty awful ones here lately.
=(

[Arhen]

how about implementing a "enter this code to register" button on the registration page? I can't remember if there is already one or not.. just thinking of ways that would get rid of those ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ spammers =P and at the same time save the forums from being killed again *ponders*

just my 2cp

Arhen.

[Brasse]

There is such a code generator. It can only block non-humans who can't figure it out.
This forum software is approved by our service provides as not vulnerable to the issues the previous version had.

[Brakk]

Yeah, it's called CAPTCHA, and there is one implemented by default in SMF forums.  It isn't a very advanced one, and I think the bots are getting around it.  Or the spammers are human.

Honestly, character recognition is getting so good that computer scripts are getting better at answering them than humans.

I believe there are some SMF mods out there to implement better challenge response at registration.  The ones that are the most effective are ones that actually require a small amount of thought.  Like a picture of 3 puppies asking how many puppies are white...  Databases of images and questions about them are GREAT.  One of the easiest is also pretty effective, making a dummy field on the form hidden and rejecting anyone that fills it in.  Most bots want to put something in every field, and don't know if they are hidden or not.  A human would not be able to fill it in.

Anyway, we are heading out on vacation now, so I don't want to experiment right now, but I will look into the available options when we return.

[Arhen]

alright, well have a good time then!! =)

Take care,
Arhen

[Erebethor]

As well as Avatars, the smileys now seem to be gone as well. Is the eejit that shut us down in the first place back again? If I was alone with him and a stick... "honestly officer, we were just playing an innocent game of baseball when the bat slipped onto his head..."
lol
Ereb

[Erebethor]

Smileys seem to be back... Any news about the Avatars?