spam bot using yabbse message system.

[Coyote]

Hi,

I have some kind of spam program trying to message my users on the IM system.

I have banned the IP address - but they still keep trying to access the messaging system.

The main thing that is annoying me is that its filling up my error log with - 'your banned' errors and its becoming annoying.

I have contacted the ISP of the user and requested that they do something.

For everyone else, the IP is '64.140.49.66'  I would suggest adding it to your banned users list - cos if this person gets in they will message your entire userbase.

If anyone wants the error logs as proof - let me know and I will send them to you.

I think it would be a nice option to limit IM's somehow - as programmes like this will become more and more common.

Also it would be nice to be able to dump the error log to a file from the error log screen - so it could be attached to the email that goes off to the abuse team.

In the words of someone famous - who I cant remember -

'Be careful out there'

Tony.

[Coyote]

Has anyone else come across somebody using a program like this before?

[Douglas]

In the Completed Mods folder, there's a mod that will block people's email addresses and other information from outside guests.  You should take a look at it, as it does prevent bots and people from being able to view profile information unless they are logged in.

[Ben_S]

This is not a spam bot

Name:    cr1.turnitin.com
Address:  64.140.49.66

http://www.turnitin.com/

Its a spider - read up on their site about their services.

There was a discussion about it here - http://www.yabbse.org/community/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=22360

And it respects robots.txt files so you can ask it not to visit your site - details here - http://www.turnitin.com/robot/crawlerinfo.html

[Coyote]

Ahh,

I blocked it from accessing port 80 on Apache

Thanks Scotty - I'll read up on it.