Spambot invasion!

[electra225]

We set a new record for these bottom feeders this morning. 7929 guests on the forum. If you can't access the forum at times, be patient. We have been keeping them off the forum by being hard-nosed about requiring locations, and by staying on top if it. We have been VERY fortunate not to have more issues than we have had. This volume of traffic is hard on the server. Thank you all for your patience....

[electra225]

Mark has put a possible solution on the front burner. This situation is unmanageable at this point. There are individuals whose only intent is to cause havoc. There are 6,017 guests on the forum as I type this. We may very well set a new record by the end of the day.....

Now up to 7556. Here comes a new record......

Now down to 6899, then on down to 5969. At least, it's going the right way.....

Back up to 6991. This has all been within a 15 minute span of time. I am doing laundry and monitoring the spambots. I should be working in the shop. It's raining here and this really sucks.....

Up to 7854. Getting closer to a new record.....

NEW RECORD!! 7981 at 11:24 am my time. At least it's not a huge difference. We may not be done yet.....

7558 on right now. So far, they haven't tried getting on the forum. They want to shut down the server.

[electra225]

Our new record is 12,204 in a five-minute period. They haven't tried to get on the forum, oddly enough.

[electra225]

If you guys find the forum loads slow, you can thank the spambots. They have been at it all day. Still over 8000 on as I type this. We are lucky to not be totally done. Mark is working on a better solution and I'll keep you guys informed best I can. Be patient, we'll get thru this. We have been able to keep them off the forum, but that onslaught may be coming next. I have been getting an error message saying the forum isn't secure. I have no idea what's up with that.

[electra225]

There are only 136 "guests" on with me as I type this. Better, certainly, and I think we have Mark to thank for that. We aren't out of the woods yet, I fear. We'll stay on top of the situation and I thank you for your understanding and for your patience.

[1922VV111]

This is probably why I have trouble accessing the Talking Machine Forum some times.

[electra225]

ARF hired an on-forum computer guru to keep them up and running. If The Talking Machine forum isn't up on their moderating and security, they have a problem. We have Mark who is working hard to keep the spambots from shutting down his server. I have been monitoring this forum VERY closely the last three days. I can tell you that Divine Intervention is the only reason this forum is still up and running. 12,000+ on at one time should have shut us down.

[electra225]

16,495 guests in a five-minute window is the current record. We are VERY fortunate to be up and running, although a bit slow to load. This invasion is unprecedented and I'm not sure what we can do, except stay on top of it and try as best we can to keep the bad actors off the forum. Thank you all for your patience....

[TC Chris]

what's the motivation for the attackers, anyway?

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Your guess is as good as mine on that, Chris. Only 256 guests on currently. Thanks, Mark!!

There is an element of society that gets joy, apparently, in destroying what someone, or several "someones" worked hard to develop. What joy you'd get or what their motivation might be otherwise is a mystery to me.

The spambot invasion we had in the spring went after the forum. We had quite the challenge keeping them off the forum. This invasion seems to be focused strictly on the server. We have only had one real spambot new member here lately, the last 90 days or so.

[TC Chris]

The fun of wrecking something has got to be short-lived. Is there a follow-the-money angle?

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Not that I have found or heard of. The best I can understand is that certain IP addresses are responsible for all the hits on websites. I've heard that AI may be responsible for some of it. I don't know enough about AI to know to determine whether I buy that or not. What kind of equipment would you need to be able to make thousands of hits at once to a website? Somebody has to pay for that.

[electra225]

This morning at 7 am, I had 158 guests on with me. At 9 am, there were just over 16,000. At 11 am, it was down to just under 10,000. At 4 pm, there were just under 12,000. Now at 5:30 there are 118 guests. I have no idea what's going on. Never seen anything like this in my life. Even with all the traffic, the forum was still up and going, although it was really slow loading anything. No new spambot members, not even any inactive ones.

[stbasil]

I noticed slow response yesterday, but on my phone it only showed about 200 guests at the bottom of a thread. I guess admins see a different number?

[electra225]

We've been keeping under 2000 guests so far today. That is ten times our normal traffic, but is also ten times less than the last couple of days. I'm looking at the bottom of the index page at total online during the last five minutes. You should see the same numbers I do. The forums get slow when we get excessive traffic. Thanks for your patience.....

[stbasil]

Here's a screenshot @3:07 today, central daylight time.
It's the same if I switch to "desktop site" on my phone, a Pixel 8 (android). Yesterday the guests count was in the low hundreds. Strange that it doesn't show an accurate number...

[electra225]

Go to the forum index, scroll down to the bottom, under the last board. "Who is online" will be the next thing you should see. Currently, that number is 1991, although it has been a bit over 2000 down to about 1100 since about ten o'clock this morning, PST. This number may vary a bit if you are using a phone. I use Edge browser on my phone. Also, I'm wondering if the number is the same for everybody. Here lately, it has changed every time I click on a board or on a post. The number I cited it about ten times what normal traffic is, but, like I said earlier, it is only ten percent of what it has been the last couple days. Have they given up and taken their toys to another sandpile? I wouldn't bet on that......

[electra225]

Sure enough, the spambots have started attacking the forum. Bill got one today who had actually posted. "DanielGrole" who was on my list of "frequent visitor" spambots. He had been here before. I got one yesterday. I sure wish I understood the motivation of these people.....

[Conelrad]

Most of the forums I participate in now use cloudflare. Dunno the cost, or if your software is compatible.

D

[stbasil]

Yes, I see the site info now, I guess the other stats that I was looking at are just for a particular thread....