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Membership Numbers

Discussion in 'Notices & Announcements' started by Ken N Louis, Nov 29, 2015.

  1. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
    Staff Member Senior Staff Greeter Task Force Registered

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    That's interesting that a spam bot could navigate the registration process. I forget, is there a Confirmation Email that gets sent and that must be replied to? I was unaware that bots could do this stuff. Maybe they can't if they think UserName is a single field.
     
    #121
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  2. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    I'm just guessing from the similarity of the registrations. Since I don't spam for a living, I don't know. It might be that they use real people to set the accounts up, or perhaps a foreign spamming group. Anyhow, each one was similar to this (and all using weird gmail addresses):

    john
    william
    george
    gloria
    vincent
    elena
    craig
     
    #122
  3. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    Interesting (in a twisted "the world sure is sneaky" kinda way.)

    I just read that bots are creating accounts on all social media sites. F.B. alone "disabled" 1.2 billion fake accounts in the last three months of 2018 and 2.19 billion in the first quarter of 2019!!!
     
    #123
  4. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    I just realized I didn't answer this part. No, I quit using the confirmation email because it was letting anyone with an email address in. Instead, registrants have to answer a question randomly from a list of simple questions I wrote; not multiple choice - they have to type the answer in, to questions like...

    What is the capital of Alabama?
    What is the sum of two plus 3?
    If you have thirty apples and you eat 29 of them, what do you have? (multiple acceptable answers)

    For more information, see this thread
     
    #124
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2024
  5. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    Thanks. I forgot.
     
    #125
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  6. Mary Stetler

    Mary Stetler Veteran Member
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    One of my old forum mates was from Scotland. We stayed in touch for a long time (decades) but I have lost her, as the board closed down and our email addys changed or something. Her horse's name was Phylis.
     
    #126
  7. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    Wasn’t that one of the issues Musk was demanding to have cleaned up before he bought Twitter?
    There was a huge % of the accounts that were bots and left to jack up the selling price.
     
    #127

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