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Our FAQ Has Been Destroyed

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13:45 / 17.08.04

216.52.244.223 is the latest porn spouting IP

13:46 / 17.08.04

I've seen examples of other Wikis recently that have been spammed in this more subtle fashion, rather than just replacing the whole thing with casino links. The last thing that we need is to have to search through pages to remove them.

Simply, we need some sort of password or authentication or registration or something - otherwise the wiki is going to get uselessly clogged, be a magnet for other spammers and also, simply, be really annoying.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

15:28 / 17.08.04

Does anyone know if Tom is active on Barbelith at moment or whether real-life is intruding once more and claiming priority?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:52 / 17.08.04

If anyone feels like PMing me and explaining in VERY SIMPLE TERMS how to go about rescuing the Wiki when this kind of shit happens so I can help out, feel free.

Lady- I've been wondering the same myself.

17:05 / 17.08.04

To restore a page to a previous version:

1. go to page
2. click "view other revisions" at the bottom of the page
3. click "view" next to previous revision before spam added
4. click "edit revision XX" at the bottom of the page
5. click "save" button on editing screen

You can always get a previous revision back. I don't know how long it saves them for.

18:06 / 17.08.04

Addendum: most of the spam that's popping up does not remove content. With the insertion style spam, all you have to do is click on 'edit text', find and delete the link and save the revised page.

It might also be an idea to go to preferences and make sure your ficsuit name is entered as ID. This would allow someone who is just scanning the 'recent changes' pages to more easily pick out a potential spammer edit.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:15 / 18.08.04

Thanks. I can now be slightly less useless!

07:26 / 18.08.04

The (manga) link is back, this time in FormattingTextAndPostingLinksAndImages.
Look, aren't we supposed to be an international conspiracy of drug-crazed witches and anarchist terrorists? Can't we just shoot them, or rip their auras off, or something?

07:26 / 18.08.04

Whois info for the source of the manga/hentai spam below. Someone who's more net savvy than me figure some way of hurting these people.

216.52.244.223 = [ britney.bizrate.com ]

OrgName: Internap Network Services
OrgID: PNAP
Address: 250 Williams Street
Address: Suite E100
City: Atlanta
StateProv: GA
PostalCode: 30303
Country: US
NetRange: 216.52.0.0 - 216.52.255.255
CIDR: 216.52.0.0/16
NetName: PNAP-8-98
NetHandle: NET-216-52-0-0-1
Parent: NET-216-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS1.PNAP.NET
NameServer: NS2.PNAP.NET
Comment: ADDRESSES WITHIN THIS BLOCK ARE NON-PORTABLE
RegDate: 1998-08-24
Updated: 2002-06-17
TechHandle: INO3-ARIN
TechName: InterNap Network Operations Center
TechPhone: 1-206-256-9500
TechEmail: noc@internap.com

OrgAbuseHandle: IAC3-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Internap Abuse Contact
OrgAbusePhone: 1-206-256-9500
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@internap.com

OrgTechHandle: INO3-ARIN
OrgTechName: InterNap Network Operations Center
OrgTechPhone: 1-206-256-9500
OrgTechEmail: noc@internap.com

CustName: Bizrate.com
Address: 4053 Redwood Ave.
City: Los Angeles
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 90066
Country: US
RegDate: 1999-09-02
Updated: 1999-09-02
NetRange: 216.52.244.128 - 216.52.244.255
CIDR: 216.52.244.128/25
NetName: PNAP-LAX-BIZRAT-RM-03
NetHandle: NET-216-52-244-128-1
Parent: NET-216-52-0-0-1
NetType: Reassigned
Comment:
RegDate: 1999-09-02
Updated: 1999-09-02
TechHandle: INO3-ARIN
TechName: InterNap Network Operations Center
TechPhone: 1-206-256-9500
TechEmail: noc@internap.com

OrgAbuseHandle: IAC3-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Internap Abuse Contact
OrgAbusePhone: 1-206-256-9500
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@internap.com

OrgTechHandle: INO3-ARIN
OrgTechName: InterNap Network Operations Center
OrgTechPhone: 1-206-256-9500
OrgTechEmail: noc@internap.com

21:34 / 20.08.04

QUICK FIX:

edit wiki.pl. where you see:

$EditPass = "";

change to:

$EditPass = "barbelith";

A minor nuscience, as it will require us to remember the password, which is so terribly difficult that surely we could never keep track of it, but is enough to keep the bots out. Now if its actual humans we're dealing with here, this will probably still work anyway, as humans doing this sort of thing must have the IQ of pond scum to beign with.

REAL FIX:

Install this patch and this patch. Problem solved.

10:28 / 08.09.04

Is there any chance that somebody who knows him IRL could make Tom aware that this is still an issue? It's getting to the point where I'm about to give up and let the spammers have the thing (especially seeing as the fact that people here are *still* incapable of putting URLs into links suggests that nobody's reading it anyway).

16:27 / 08.09.04

Where is Tom, anyway? Last plasticbag entry has something about Amsterdam in it, from Aug 25, I think.

13:01 / 11.09.04

I'm around but not quite as engaged with my online life as I might be. After about nine months of solid work and three weeks of holiday I'm trying to reorder my priorities for a bit and find some stability. I don't imagine it'll take me that long, but i'm going to remain a sporadic contributor in the meantime.

I'll look into passwording the wiki (or something similar), and I'll post the details here if I can get it done. Thanks guys.

17:14 / 12.09.04

Now this made my day. It's trying to add spam to the Recent Changes page, but because it's the Recent Changes page, every time the spam gets added the page updates yet again to show that the page has been changed, well, recently. Which seems to have meant that the automatic spammer has gone into a loop. It is to laugh.

13:53 / 14.09.04

Okay, now there's a spambot that tries to fool you into ignoring a revision to a page by filling in the reson field when it overwrites a page. With this in mind, can I ask that if anyone alters the contents of one of the wiki pages they log into it to do so, as I'm now likely to revert any changes not accompanied by a recognisable login name back to a previous version of the page as a matter of course.

06:18 / 16.09.04

Woah... now the Wiki's really wacky.
The Wiki, the Wiki, the Wiki's really wacky.
Uh-huh
Uh-huh
Trying to get someone to unfuck the wacky Wiki is tricky
It's tricky
It's very very tricky.

All the people in the house say YEAH!
C'mon and say a motherfuckin' PRAYER!
When you fight, you gots to fight fair
you motherfucker ho motherfucker
YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS!
It's Tenacious B time!

07:20 / 16.09.04

And that's this week's installment of asshole theatre. Thank-you Lord Morgue.

08:28 / 17.09.04

All I can say in my defense is that I had the flu, and so was on more drugs than usual... (slinks away)

10:36 / 27.09.04

Tom, are you able to completely delete pages from the wiki? There are three or four up now that have been created as a result of the spam and aren't doing anything useful, just sitting there waiting for their contents to be changed to links for sewing machines and the like:

One
Two
Three
Four

Also, we've just been hit by a wave of spam that's been created by something or someone logging onto the wiki in order to post it. It's meant another new page that needs to be deleted here, but I guess it also means that this username will have to be deleted from the database if a username/password system is put in place for edits.

00:49 / 05.10.04

09:44 / 06.10.04

Gah! The front page of the Wiki is TOTALLY SKELTERED!
Does anyone have a R.L. address for these unredeemed coprophages? Perhaps someone local could drop by with a demonstrative reference to the Anarchist's Cookbook.

12:41 / 06.10.04

I'm only going to bother sorting it out once a week from now on, seeing as the spammers are coming so thick and fast now that they're effectively overwriting each other.

Can I just ask again that anyone who wants to either fix the pages themselves or submit proper revisions logs in to the wiki with a recognisable name to do so (your password doesn't have to be the same, and it's probably safer if it isn't)? Otherwise it means having to check through every change to see if it's spam or spam removal, which is a chore - if there's a name there, it can just be presumed to be a fix.

21:24 / 06.10.04

Maybe we should start a rota.

02:00 / 13.10.04

Another visit from this spammer last night. Just saying, mainly because I’m astonished that any bot actually signs in so it can ruin our lovely FAQ.

09:14 / 22.10.04

Maybe we should start a rota

A rota? What a good idea that seems. Anyone fancy taking a week each, Monday to Monday or something? Make a list, PM a reminder to the next dude on the list when you’re finished, stuff like that.

17:18 / 26.10.04

I'd be up for that. You want first go?

22:35 / 26.10.04

Groovy. I’ll pm you next Wednesday to hand over, grant. And I’ll do my very utmost to keep it spam-free in the meantime.

ONLY NICE THINGS

23:32 / 26.10.04

I'm not great with wikis - I could join the rota with a few simple instructions, but my ability to do it might be circumscribed by work...

23:42 / 26.10.04

It's remarkably easy to get rid of the spam, Haus. Check earlier in the thread (although not my big post on the first page - I got myself a bit confused there).

I'd sooner see the wiki locked completely than have us setting up a formal rota for despamification. I mean, bar the spam it's only had the one proper edit in, well, months. I just think it's utterly ridiculous that we're at the point where we're seriously talking about creating a duty list for something that appears to be easily preventable.

01:13 / 27.10.04

Well, I agree. It is an utterly ridiculous situation. I’m shocked to discover how much spam comes in during a day, to be honest. Day in, day out. I can’t believe you’ve just been quietly cleaning all this up for so long.

But, locking it completely? I was just starting to think in my idealistic way that once it’s spam-proof again (which cusm seemed to suggest is only a minor tweak 'n patch - although one which needs the attention of overworked Tom), after that there might be a little drive to encourage more input into the wiki from all current members. It seems as though many of the people who built that wiki might not post here so much any more. And building it is a communal thing to do, seems to me, and besides, it’s full of stubs and it needs more work doing to it. Which could still be fun, once the tyre-sellers have finally been banished, because they’re spoiling the mood.

Um, but, yeah. A 3 page thread dedicated to this stupid problem seems entirely wrong when we *could* perhaps be having a 3 page thread about all the groovy things a bunch of intelligent, creative, deeply sensitive individuals can do with a wiki.

11:28 / 27.10.04

I don't mean that I'd like to see it locked, just that I think starting a cleaning rota is vaguely similar in terms of being a silly, needless extreme.

But hey, if you guys want to do it then go for it.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:49 / 27.10.04

Well, a password-protected wiki would be fine. I doubt most spambots would join the board just to find out the password...

22:43 / 27.10.04

Okay, I was joking about the rota.

I don't mind logging on in the morning, checking for spam and removing any I find. But really, if this Wiki is going to be a proper FAQ for Barbelith, some sort of access control needs to be implemented - sorry Tom, I know you're busy, but it's the truth. It wouldn't be a big job.

08:19 / 29.10.04

Yeah unfortunately it's one of an enormous number of small jobs that I need to plough through.

18:27 / 29.10.04

Um. Okay then, Policy wonks. You all know far more about these things than me, so you’ll doubtless know whether or not this is worthy of note. Only, I’m wondering whether it’s a dip into our wiki by a real person, as opposed to a spambot.

In the recent changes page: there’s a ‘test’ change, then a big slew of spam, and then the same address deletes the spam and puts it back to normal, all within 4 minutes. Which is a bit weird, no? Googling the IP responsible only brings up a load of Russian stuff I don’t understand. Please tell me there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.

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