Blocked Countries - Cannot use DN.ca (3.Viewing)

Due to a horrendous amount of spam we have started dis-allowing users from certain countries from registering, contacting members, or using our contact form.

We will update this list periodically...

IN = India, for spam
RU = Russia, for dangerous code
PK = Pakistan, for deceipt
BD = Bangladesh, for spam

Since we are basically s Canadian only site, we gave the luxury of doing this.

I pity the global sites because spam is taking over an hour every day to clean up.

Perhaps charging a token amount ($1) to register would reduce spam?

Disrupting the economics of spam tends to be more effective than trying to use technical approaches.....

GeorgeK said:

Perhaps charging a token amount ($1) to register would reduce spam?

Disrupting the economics of spam tends to be more effective than trying to use technical approaches.....

Click to expand...

I wish it were that easy...

Example

The contact form



Received 282 spam messages last night, rendering it useless for members to use as a method of contact when they have login issues. Having to scan 282 spams for a single legitimate is response quite time consuming. That does not even get into our sponsor@ pay@ donate@ admin@ etc email addresses.

Also spam registrations advertising services, 95% get caught but must be individually reviewed and deleted daily.

So much time is allocated daily to spam that it is becoming easier to ban the countries of origin because the flow never stops.
Additionally we have had to block certain VPN's from accessing dn.ca

Server attacks are getting more frequent as well as people trying to hide code in posts which causes an immediate alarm.

Quite honestly this project of passion is consuming so much time that there are days where I wonder why I should continue. The costs of running the board keep going up and the time needed to assure things run is ever expanding. Each software upgrade gets more difficult and major parts of the code have to be re-written or re-purchased.

Little to no support from members when I ask for volunteers to help either so it is on me to constantly to be alert and logged in. Banning these counties will do a lot to lessen my daily workload because quite honestly at this point I am getting overwhelmed with how much work it is to run the community.

If you have shell access to your server, you can write scripts that automatically block IP addresses for a period of time when it detects known patterns. There is ALWAYS a pattern... That's what I do.

I use Cloudflare to block malicious access request patterns and show managed challenges. It’s extremely effective as it’s at the network layer and easy to manage as well.

We use cloudflare as well, you don't see it because you are registered. If you log out and try to register, or use the contact form, you will see cloudflare in use. Spammers have figured that out as well, they know how to get around it.

MapleDots said:

Little to no support from members when I ask for volunteers to help either so it is on me to constantly to be alert and logged in. Banning these counties will do a lot to lessen my daily workload because quite honestly at this point I am getting overwhelmed with how much work it is to run the community.

Click to expand...

What are the requirements to assist? I have a lighter workload until March.

mcm said:

What are the requirements to assist? I have a lighter workload until March.

Click to expand...

Same, I'm willing to help if I can