Banned Emails for Registration - Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail

[Ron Earp]

Although I really didn't want to do it Paul and I decided it was best that we ban gmail.com, yahoo.com, and hotmail.com accounts from registering on the site.

Most VB forum sites that I am a member of do not allow these accounts (plus a few others) due to the fact that they are most often used by spammers. Sometimes members use these accounts to form "alternative personalities" that they then use to post on the forum an inflame threads. We have instances of both spammers and alternative personality use on this forum.

For those that have already registered with a gmail.com, yahoo.com, or hotmail.com account you will have to change nothing. You are "grandfathered in" already. Only new members will be prevented from signing up using these free/public domain email accounts.

I'm sorry for the inconvinence but I think the change has the potential to make the forum a more enjoyable place with less work for the admins.

Thanks,
Ron

 

[Simon]

Good move Ron.

 

[Randy V]

I manage a small forum (local) with about 35 REAL members. The current membership roster has over 13k members (only the 35 mentioned before have been approved) - the remaining members are all spammers...

I wish that the forum software I'm using allowed for the banning of the freebie email providers... ((sigh))

 

[Kirby Schrader]

Ron,

Thanks very much for the 'grandfathering', although it just another thing that makes me feel old... :drunk:

As a comment, I use gmail extensively and have, in fact, started to move my 5 other email addresses to gmail due to it being readily available anywhere in the world and its high reliability and uptime not to mention they're improving it all the time. The webmail interface is good and they allow easy access to POP and SMTP. I can access is almost any time, anywhere, even with my iPhone.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, not everyone who uses gmail is a spammer! :laugh:

I understand fully why you're doing what you're doing, of course.
Thanks for keeping this site up and running!

Regards,
Kirby

Although I really didn't want to do it Paul and I decided it was best that we ban gmail.com, yahoo.com, and hotmail.com accounts from registering on the site.

Most VB forum sites that I am a member of do not allow these accounts (plus a few others) due to the fact that they are most often used by spammers. Sometimes members use these accounts to form "alternative personalities" that they then use to post on the forum an inflame threads. We have instances of both spammers and alternative personality use on this forum.

For those that have already registered with a gmail.com, yahoo.com, or hotmail.com account you will have to change nothing. You are "grandfathered in" already. Only new members will be prevented from signing up using these free/public domain email accounts.

I'm sorry for the inconvinence but I think the change has the potential to make the forum a more enjoyable place with less work for the admins.

Thanks,
Ron

 

[Ron Earp]

I guess what I'm trying to say is, not everyone who uses gmail is a spammer! :laugh:

Correct.

But everyone with internet access has access to an email address, typically one email address, tied to their data service. Folks can use this email address for registration and then switch over to gmail, hotmail, or yahoo whenever they like.

I know one thing - since we made the switch on Saturday I've not had to delete any spam. How about you Paul? Before the switch spam deletion was a daily occurrence.

 

[JoeTreu]

Spam is good fried in a pan.

 

[Paul Thompson 'Hooligan']

Correct.
I know one thing - since we made the switch on Saturday I've not had to delete any spam. How about you Paul? Before the switch spam deletion was a daily occurrence.

The last one I deleted was Sun Morning 10am. I tried tracing the i/p which seemed to originate from China -but then from USA so not sure.

For anyone handy at detective work, it was - 219.143.155.216 and the registered email address was: [email protected]

The problem there as I see it is I could register a domain name for next to no cost and then spam from that domain till it was complained about enough and blocked, at which point I then set up another. Clearly not all gmail or hotmail users are spammers but it does seem to have had an effect to the good.

The details I located on the above registered address are shown below:


Whois Record for 126.com

( 126 ) Change Word Breaks

​

Aftermarket.com Domain Auction — February 21, 2009, 2:45pm (CST) — Sell your domains now!!​

​

<TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD style="WIDTH: 700px">Front Page Information

<TABLE class=whois cellSpacing=1 border=0><TBODY><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Website Title:</TD><TD>

网易126免费邮--你的专业电子邮局 </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Title Relevancy</TD><TD>75%</TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Meta Description:</TD><TD>网易126邮箱--专业电子邮局提供免费网络硬盘网络硬盘.网易126免费邮是网易公司顷力打造的专业电子邮局，3G免费空间，支持超大20兆附件。126邮箱使用创新Ajax技术， 同等网络环境下，页面响应时间减少90％以上，垃圾邮件及病毒有效拦截率超过98％和99.8％。 </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Description Relevancy:</TD><TD>52% relevant. </TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>AboutUs:</TD><TD> Wiki article on 126.com </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>SEO Score: </TD><TD>78% </TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Terms:</TD><TD>101 (Unique: 81, Linked: 67) </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Images:</TD><TD>2 (Alt tags missing: 1) </TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Links:</TD><TD>40 (Internal: 8, Outbound: 32) </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>iFrames:</TD><TD>1 ( Parts of page not indexable by most search engines. ) </TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Related Sites:</TD><TD>163.com, baidu.com, china.com, google.com, sohu.com, tom.com, yahoo.com </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><SCRIPT>jQuery('#frontPageContainer').show();</SCRIPT>

Indexed Data

<TABLE class=whois cellSpacing=1 border=0><TBODY><TR class=odd><TD class=t>DMOZ: </TD><TD colSpan=3>10 listings </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Y! Directory: </TD><TD colSpan=3>8 listings </TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t><NOBR>Visitors by Country: </NOBR></TD><TD style="POSITION: relative" colSpan=3><TABLE style="WIDTH: 100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="WIDTH: 49%"><NOBR>

China 97.8% </NOBR>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=t><NOBR>Visitors by City: </NOBR></TD><TD style="POSITION: relative" colSpan=3><TABLE style="WIDTH: 100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="WIDTH: 49%"><NOBR>

Beijing 27.1% </NOBR>
<NOBR>

Shanghai 10.4% </NOBR>
<NOBR>

Shenzhen 5.4% </NOBR>
</TD><TD style="WIDTH: 49%"><NOBR>

Guangzhou 4.9% </NOBR>
<NOBR>

Jinan 3.4% </NOBR>
<NOBR>

Hangzhou 3.2% </NOBR>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Alexa Trend/Rank: </TD><TD colSpan=3>

#354: Down 67 ranks over the last three months. </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Compete Rank: </TD><TD>

#111,879 with 14,628 U.S. visitors per month </TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Quantcast Rank: </TD><TD colSpan=3>#66,238 </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Wikipedia: </TD><TD colSpan=3>Listed on 3 pages </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><SCRIPT>jQuery('#indexedDataContainer').show();</SCRIPT>

Registry Data

<TABLE class=whois cellSpacing=1 border=0><TBODY><TR class=odd><TD class=t>ICANN Registrar: </TD><TD>NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.</TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Created: </TD><TD>1998-02-28</TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Expires: </TD><TD>2014-02-28</TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Updated: </TD><TD>2008-12-24</TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Registrar Status: </TD><TD>clientTransferProhibited </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Name Server: </TD><TD>NS3.NEASE.NET (has 30 domains) </TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Name Server: </TD><TD>NS4.NEASE.NET </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Whois Server: </TD><TD>whois.networksolutions.com</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><SCRIPT>jQuery('#registryDataContainer').show();</SCRIPT>

Server Data

<TABLE class=whois cellSpacing=1 border=0><TBODY><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Server Type: </TD><TD>Apache </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>IP Address: </TD><TD>123.125.50.22 Whois | Reverse-IP | Ping | DNS Lookup | Traceroute </TD></TD><TR class=odd><TD class=t>IP Location </TD><TD>

- Beijing - Beijing - Cncgroup Beijing Province Network </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Response Code: </TD><TD>200 </TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Domain Status: </TD><TD>Registered And Active Website </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><SCRIPT>jQuery('#serverDataContainer').show();</SCRIPT>

DomainTools Exclusive

<TABLE class="whois exclusive" cellSpacing=1 border=0><TBODY><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Registrant Search:</TD><TD style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: #080">"Netease.com, Inc." owns about 15 other domains </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Email Search:</TD><TD> is associated with about 30 domains
</TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Registrar History:</TD><TD>1 registrar </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>IP History:</TD><TD>5 changes on 5 unique name servers over 5 years. </TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t>Whois History:</TD><TD>1,175 records have been archived since 2002-01-08. </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t>Reverse IP:</TD><TD>3 other sites hosted on this server. </TD></TR><TR class=odd><TD class=t><NOBR>Monitor Domain:</NOBR></TD><TD>

Set Free Alerts on 126.com </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t><NOBR>Free Tool:</NOBR></TD><TD> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Whois Record

Registrant:
Netease.com, Inc.
7FL, Netease Building, No 16, KeYun Rd
ZhongShan Av. GuangZhou IT Harbor
Guangzhou, Guangdong 510665
CN

Domain Name: 126.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Netease.com, Inc.
7FL, Netease Building, No 16, KeYun Rd
ZhongShan Av. GuangZhou IT Harbor
Guangzhou, Guangdong 510665
CN
+86-20-85106370 fax: +86-20-85551592

Record expires on 24-Jan-2014.
Record created on 28-Feb-1998.
Database last updated on 3-Feb-2009 08:19:37 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS4.NEASE.NET 61.135.255.138
NS3.NEASE.NET 220.181.28.3

​

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

[Keith]

Hmmmm.. looks as if Wun Hung Lo is at it again...:shifty:

 

[Chris Martino]

Ron - do you have CAPTCHA visual confirmation installed?


Chris

 

[Ron Earp]

Yep, we do. Those can be fooled by bots these days, but they help.

 

[Ian K]

CAPTCHAs are very effective, but, as Ron said, they can be circumvented.

The latest trick is for a bot to grab a CAPTCHA page, and then pipe it into
a porn site page, where a live person will peruse the page, see the grabbed
CAPTCHA, provide the required letters/numbers, and then the bot grabs the
results and pipes it into the original CAPTCHA page. Neat, huh ? (It's actually
not the latest trick, it's been in use for a couple of years already).

At first I was a little concerned with initial blocking of Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail
accounts (what about AOL, BTW?) However, seeing that original reg blocks, but
you can switch over later, seems like a good compromise.

Ian

 

[Chris Martino]

Considering the millions of bots out there you would think any human oversight would be fruitless as the volume would be virtually impossible to stay on top of unless I'm not understanding how the bots bi-pass them correctly?

I installed the newest version of CAPTCHA and so far (one month) I have not had a single bogus registration. There are other security measures you can apply but I think just cutting down on the hotmail etc accounts would most certainly help.

Time will tell no doubt... happy hunting!


Chris

 

[BigB98]

Ron, shoot me a mail. I have a solution or two for you. Believe me I know how bad it can get, but my sites are doing ok now.

 

[Paul Thompson 'Hooligan']

And another this morning - 219.143.135.82

Asia Pacific Networks again.

 

[Paul Thompson 'Hooligan']

.....and again :

<TABLE id=usersandips cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD class=leftcell><FIELDSET class=fieldset style="WIDTH: 231px; HEIGHT: 124px"><LEGEND>Affected Users</LEGEND>The user(s) who posted the spam are:

1. xianxian009<INPUT type=hidden value=19031 name=userid[]>

</FIELDSET>
suprise suprise - same area.
</TD><TD class=rightcell><FIELDSET class=fieldset style="WIDTH: 265px; HEIGHT: 149px"><LEGEND>Affected IP Addresses</LEGEND>The IP addresses used to post the spam are:

1. 219.143.135.82

</FIELDSET></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

[Eric]

Thanks for all the work you administrators do to keep this forum "clean." It is appreciated, at least by me. Keep up the good work making this forum a treasure trove of knowledge for the GT40 community. I know when I come here I will find resources and no spam. It is very refreshing.

Eric

 

[Keith]

To be fair, I believe that I'm the closest thing to spam on this site, or so I've been told... :lol:

 

[Mike]

Thanks for doing what you guys do.

I was a member of another site and, to my surprise, when I complained about all the crappy posts the threads had, I was told that the admins would love to block those for the users sake, but the hits were being used by the site owner to sell ad space. I quickly stopped visiting that site.

 

[Ian K]

Considering the millions of bots out there you would think any human oversight would be fruitless as the volume would be virtually impossible to stay on top of unless I'm not understanding how the bots bi-pass them correctly?

I installed the newest version of CAPTCHA and so far (one month) I have not had a single bogus registration. There are other security measures you can apply but I think just cutting down on the hotmail etc accounts would most certainly help.

Time will tell no doubt... happy hunting!


Chris

Hi Chris,

I never responded to this, but here goes:

Basically, imagine the throngs of people who surf porn sites each and every day. Now,
imagine that to view a pic or video, they have to enter a CAPTCHA phrase to "unlock"
it. Now, consider that the CAPTCHA phrase they unlock is really a forwarded CAPTCHA
phrase from an external site, and the resulting text string is sent back to the original
site, thus allowing the bot to bypass it.

Yes, it doesn't keep up with the number of bots out there entirely, but I assure you,
the success level is tremendous.

Ian

 

[Ron Earp]

Yep, Ian has it right.

For the last five weeks the ban on Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail has been off. And guess what - we're back to deleting spam daily.

But the flip side is that with the ban ON I kept getting emails every couple of days from people that can't read or don't want to read:

"How come my email is banned? I'm trying to register for the site and it won't let me!!!!!"

or

"I read that Hotmail is banned. I use Hotmail. Can you change the rules for me?"

So no matter which way we go Paul and I have work to do.

Ron