Wiki Defacement

[Colin McGregor]

--- Alex Beamish <talexb-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On 6/12/07, Colin McGregor <colinmc151-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > --- Robert Brockway <robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy at public.gmane.org>
> wrote:
> > > On Sun, 10 Jun 2007, Robert Brockway wrote:
> > >
> > > > 1.  They seem to be doing intelligent test
> edits
> > > to see if we'll notice. Eg,
> > > > they changed C to C++ in someone's bio.
> > > >
> > > > 2.  They are way too slow.  I'm reverting
> faster
> > > than they are adding.
> > > > There is no way I could keep up with a bot
> going
> > > full speed.
> > >
> > > 3.  Because they backoff when I start reverting
> > > their edits.
> > >
> > > They are still active so I hope others are
> looking
> > > at the 'Recent Changes'
> > > too.
> 
> Are we doing an recording of the IP addresses? Would
> a temporary block of
> some IP address ranges help the situation?

I know the software will allow you to block based on
IP address, but I have not found a way to determine
what IP number(s) is/are being used by a given user. 

At THE MOMENT things are quiet, mind you the amount of
#$%^ in the system in semi-unreal. I can pull up a log
of the last 500 changes to the system, which gets us
back to part way through Monday, between spam,
correcting spam, locking down favourite spam target
pages and banning throw away spammer accounts. 

Damage that remains, GTALug's Wiki user account list
is over 1200 users, a very large percentage following
the 6 character (with 1st, and often 4th character
capitalized) format favoured by the spammer(s). Other
damage, while the spam loaded pages are cleaned up
anyone going into the archives of past page versions
can still find the spam, which is ugly from a storage
issue, and then there is the issue of 'bots indexing
our site (thus indexing and promoting the spammer
websites).

Bottom line, even if the spammer(s) go away NOW and
don't return (no promise on that score) we still have
a mess on our hands,,,

Colin McGregor
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