Looks like http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/ has been totally defaced has anybody got a recent backup to fix it? Cheers, BJ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.9.5/58 - Release Date: 25/07/2005
John Woodard wrote:
Looks like http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/ has been totally defaced has anybody got a recent backup to fix it?
A backup from a month ago has been restored, not sure if anyone has anything more recent? Regards Darren
Looks like http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/ has been totally defaced has anybody got a recent backup to fix it?
That really sucks. Spammers of all types should be caught, carved up into little bits, packed into small tins and handed out as Victory Spam to party members in our forthcoming Big Brother state. Or perhaps just have their nipples slowly removed through the power of many many paper cuts. Fin.
-----Original Message----- From: main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Steve Engledow Sent: 28 July 2005 09:04 To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] ALUG Wiki
Looks like http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/ has been totally defaced has anybody got a recent backup to fix it?
That really sucks. Spammers of all types should be caught, carved up into little bits, packed into small tins and handed out as Victory Spam to party members in our forthcoming Big Brother state.
Or perhaps just have their nipples slowly removed through the power of many many paper cuts.
Fin.
Thanks to Darren at php4hosting.com who kindly hosts the web site for us a recent backup has cured the mess that the spammers left the wiki in. All should be well for now at least until one of the spamming scum does it again. Oh the joys of having an open access wiki! Cheers, BJ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.9.6/59 - Release Date: 27/07/2005
On 28/07/05, John Woodard <mail@johnwoodard.co.uk> wrote:
Thanks to Darren at php4hosting.com who kindly hosts the web site for us a recent backup has cured the mess that the spammers left the wiki in. All should be well for now at least until one of the spamming scum does it again. Oh the joys of having an open access wiki!
Hants, Surrey and Wolves LUGs used to suffer really badly with this on their wikis. The Hants LUG people developed some patches to the wiki they use (usemod) to help to reduce the amount of spam that gets through. These patches were rolled out to Wolves and Surrey also. Some still does of course - they're inventive little gits these spammers, but the vast majority has been curbed. You might want to have a look at the AntiSpam [1] page on the HantsLUG wiki to see what was done, and how this might help you guys. Cheers, Al. [1] http://hants.lug.org.uk/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?AntiSpam
Alan Pope <alan.pope@gmail.com> wrote:
You might want to have a look at the AntiSpam [1] page on the HantsLUG wiki to see what was done, and how this might help you guys.
Thanks to Darren and everyone else involved for working on this while I was away. I had some ad-hoc spam tools, but it looks like they would have been overwhelmed even if I had time to use them. If anyone has time to put similar patches into our phpwiki, or upgrade it or port the wikitext to another spam-resistant wiki, let me know and I'll give you the code or set up access (if Darren's OK with another person with shell access). I'd really like to keep open publishing and I'd also like it if we can copy useful and slow-changing contents to /articles/ instead. Any suggestions? Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
Thanks to Darren and everyone else involved for working on this
while I was away. I had some ad-hoc spam tools, but it looks like they would have been overwhelmed even if I had time to use them.
If anyone has time to put similar patches into our phpwiki, or upgrade it or port the wikitext to another spam-resistant wiki, let me know and I'll give you the code or set up access (if Darren's OK with another person with shell access).
Thats fine by me
I'd really like to keep open publishing and I'd also like it if we can copy useful and slow-changing contents to /articles/ instead. Any suggestions?
Maybe we could use the IP tools and just put restrictions on the pages that edit the wiki? If there is anything I can help with let meknow Darren
Darren wrote:
Maybe we could use the IP tools and just put restrictions on the pages that edit the wiki?
Username/password authentication would be useful (with email verification perhaps?) - doesn't require people to fill out unnecessarily long forms to register, but just *something* that would make it a little harder for these bots and/or idiots to deface anything.. Regards, Martyn
"John Woodard" <mail@johnwoodard.co.uk> writes:
Thanks to Darren at php4hosting.com who kindly hosts the web site for us a recent backup has cured the mess that the spammers left the wiki in. All should be well for now at least until one of the spamming scum does it again. Oh the joys of having an open access wiki!
A wiki I help operate was having a lot of trouble with spam - basically you need someone to check it daily and revert any spam found. Having more than one despammer helps. We tried blocking IP addresses that had posted spam initially, but this didn't remain effective for very long. Since then I've done the following things: * Changed the name of one of the form parameters. This is plain obfuscation; anyone using an interactive browser to spam will be unaffected, but a spamming script explicitly designed for UseModWiki will find a speedbump. * Created a list of unsayable strings, and populated it with the names of the websites used by the wiki spammers (or in some cases substrings of those names, though obviously this needs a little care). * Changed the hostname (for unrelated reasons). This has probably helped in the short term but obviously isn't a viable general solution. * Added a 'revert' link to undo a change. This doesn't reduce spamming directly but makes itf easier to cleanup. The rate of spamming is now below 1 per day, which is much easier to cope with. -- http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
-----Original Message----- From: main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Richard Kettlewell Sent: 28 July 2005 14:25 To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] ALUG Wiki
"John Woodard" <mail@johnwoodard.co.uk> writes:
Thanks to Darren at php4hosting.com who kindly hosts the web site for us a recent backup has cured the mess that the spammers left the wiki in. All should be well for now at least until one of the spamming scum does it again. Oh the joys of having an open access wiki!
A wiki I help operate was having a lot of trouble with spam - basically you need someone to check it daily and revert any spam found. Having more than one despammer helps.
We tried blocking IP addresses that had posted spam initially, but this didn't remain effective for very long.
Since then I've done the following things:
* Changed the name of one of the form parameters. This is plain obfuscation; anyone using an interactive browser to spam will be unaffected, but a spamming script explicitly designed for UseModWiki will find a speedbump.
* Created a list of unsayable strings, and populated it with the names of the websites used by the wiki spammers (or in some cases substrings of those names, though obviously this needs a little care).
* Changed the hostname (for unrelated reasons). This has probably helped in the short term but obviously isn't a viable general solution.
* Added a 'revert' link to undo a change. This doesn't reduce spamming directly but makes itf easier to cleanup.
The rate of spamming is now below 1 per day, which is much easier to cope with.
All sound ideas. Over to whoever is looking after the web/wiki at the moment. Cheers, BJ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.9.6/59 - Release Date: 27/07/2005
John Woodard wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Richard Kettlewell Sent: 28 July 2005 14:25 To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] ALUG Wiki
"John Woodard" <mail@johnwoodard.co.uk> writes:
Thanks to Darren at php4hosting.com who kindly hosts the web site for us a recent backup has cured the mess that the spammers left the wiki in. All should be well for now at least until one of the spamming scum does it again. Oh the joys of having an open access wiki!
The rate of spamming is now below 1 per day, which is much easier to cope with.
All sound ideas. Over to whoever is looking after the web/wiki at the moment.
I am in the process of writting a backup script that will keep a local copy of the web directory and archive it hourly and daily etc.. Should help in the fight Darren
John Woodard wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Steve Engledow Sent: 28 July 2005 09:04 To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] ALUG Wiki
Looks like http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/ has been totally defaced has anybody got a recent backup to fix it?
Thanks to Darren at php4hosting.com who kindly hosts the web site for us a recent backup has cured the mess that the spammers left the wiki in. All should be well for now at least until one of the spamming scum does it again. Oh the joys of having an open access wiki!
For anyone who has anything to do with the website :- I have written a script (~/sync.pl) that basically makes an hourly backup of the site. It does this by making a new directory in ~/backup/ the directory name is in the format of YYMMDDHH it then runs rsync against the previous hourly copy and the current web directory. It then creates a symbolic link called current agasint the most recent backup. It will also delete anything older than 30 days. The copys taken are using hard links so it takes up minimal disk space. Its not rocket science but should do a good job in terms of recent backups. I know hourly backups may be a little over the top but if it proves to be a problem this end Ill drop it to daily or half daily. Darren
They have trashed it again in the mean time I have restored the backup again, and this time the hourly backups will ensure we can roll back properly. I have also blocked non-UK IP's as a temporary measure, it seems that US ones are a problem and that the spammers are using proxy servers etc... The measure is not perfect but should keep is safe until a decision is made as to what can be done to protect the site. Since doing it we have had 8 blocks, all from various places. ARG.... :) Darren
Darren wrote:
They have trashed it again in the mean time
I have restored the backup again, and this time the hourly backups will ensure we can roll back properly.
I have also blocked non-UK IP's as a temporary measure, it seems that US ones are a problem and that the spammers are using proxy servers etc...
The measure is not perfect but should keep is safe until a decision is made as to what can be done to protect the site.
Since doing it we have had 8 blocks, all from various places.
The joys of e-mailing myself :) Just had a visitor who had this refer http://www.google.com/search?q=transvestite+makeover+before+after&hl=en&lr=&... 5 links down http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/?edit=PhpWiki :) As soon as I restore the site spammers are trying to deface it. Maybe the option will be to just add the IP check to the pages that edit the Wiki? That way everyone can view it, but only people who list an UK/GB IP can edit it? Darren
-----Original Message----- From: main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Darren Sent: 28 July 2005 19:31 To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] ALUG Wiki
They have trashed it again in the mean time
I have restored the backup again, and this time the hourly backups will ensure we can roll back properly.
I have also blocked non-UK IP's as a temporary measure, it seems that US ones are a problem and that the spammers are using proxy servers etc...
The measure is not perfect but should keep is safe until a decision is made as to what can be done to protect the site.
Since doing it we have had 8 blocks, all from various places.
ARG.... :)
Thanks for keeping an eye on it. Cheers, BJ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.9.6/59 - Release Date: 27/07/2005
At 03:04 AM 7/28/2005, Steve Engledow wrote:
Looks like http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/ has been totally defaced has anybody got a recent backup to fix it?
That really sucks. Spammers of all types should be caught, carved up into little bits, packed into small tins and handed out as Victory Spam to party members in our forthcoming Big Brother state.
Or perhaps just have their nipples slowly removed through the power of many many paper cuts.
Russia's Biggest Spammer Brutally Murdered in Apartment: http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/07/25/spammerdead.shtml Cheers! -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.9.6/59 - Release Date: 7/27/2005
participants (8)
-
Alan Pope -
Darren -
George Waring -
John Woodard -
Martyn Drake -
MJ Ray -
Richard Kettlewell -
Steve Engledow