Subscribe to my space and sci-fi newsletter

When you sign up for my newsletter, you'll get a free sci-fi short story: Starfarer, monthly updates on space science and sci-fi, and updates on my writing projects!

    I won't send you spam or share your email with anyone. Unsubscribe at any time.


    Popular blog posts

  • Total Share: Personal Computer Market Share 1975-2010
  • Celebration
  • Monarch Thing-A-Day Challenge!
  • I love Korean Starcraft
  • Why HTML 5 sucks!
  • Recent forum posts

  • Micro History Episode 2 is up!
  • My article on the history of public messaging is up on Ars Technica!
  • Micro History Episode 0 is up!
  • How to find the best fiction ghostwriter?
  • Jeremyreimer.com is live on a new server!
  • Discussion Forum

    Discussion forum

    Did Monarch just get its first spam registration?

    Forum post

    Author
    Message

    Jeremy Reimer
    Posts: 9348
    Posted on: 2011-06-10 11:48:39.000
    I have no idea if this is a person or a bot, but I've never heard of them before.

    User: ESTELA22Hayes

    If it is a bot, it's an important milestone in the history of the Monarch content engine. It might mean that I have to actually code up that kitten captcha that I talk about in the registration screen.

    We shall see!

    Jeremy Reimer
    Posts: 9348
    Posted on: 2011-06-10 11:49:48.000
    An additional note: Interestingly, Googling "ESTELA22Hayes" did not bring up any results. Usually spam bots register on many forums at once, so the username would appear in a Google search. But maybe this name was randomly generated.

    The mystery continues!

    AllYorBaseRBelong2Us
    Posts: 10469
    Posted on: 2011-06-28 03:02:24.000
    You going to write a song?

    :)

    Jeremy Reimer
    Posts: 9348
    Posted on: 2011-06-28 22:12:43.000
    Ah, a song.. that brings back memories...

    I still listen to "APK is a dick" on my iPhone occasionally! And Drunken Woe is Madan!

    That seems like a lifetime ago...

    OscarWilde
    Posts: 10080
    Posted on: 2011-06-29 08:03:03.000
    Is that the one unusual sign up, or have you had other suspect ones too?

    Jeremy Reimer
    Posts: 9348
    Posted on: 2011-06-29 16:21:24.000
    That was the first. Now there is a second: DART Consulting, a SEO spammer.

    I may have to put up the kitten kaptcha after all.

    Harby
    Posts: 6011
    Posted on: 2011-07-04 20:19:17.000
    Burn the witch!

    Right?

    Jeremy Reimer
    Posts: 9348
    Posted on: 2012-02-28 15:34:22.000
    Wow, the trickle turned into a flood. A bunch of spammers created users all with a random username and the same (randomly-created) password. I had to create a delete user function just to clean them up.

    None of them had any posts, but I think spammers like to "farm" accounts on forums and only start spamming some time later. In any case I have deleted all the accounts and I am thinking about finally putting up a random kitten captcha thingy for registering new accounts.


    Views: 3897