I have been having the same problem (random gibberish edits) on my teampedia.net for the past few weeks. I am already using ConfirmEdit, but only have the default setting enabled (thus no captcha for all edits).
I am considering two options: - Disabling anonymous edits (i.e. requiring users to register before editing/adding) - Changing it so the captchas trigger on any edit.
Any advice about which way to go?
Thanks, -Seth
On 10/30/07, Karl Schmidt karl@xtronics.com wrote:
Emufarmers Sangly wrote:
On 10/28/07, Karl Schmidt karl@xtronics.com wrote:
Having trouble with bots placing gibberish on our site. I first want to understand the why?
It could be :
- They testing or trying to get setup to spam search engine indexes?
- They are measuring the time to rollback?
- Spy code words - pass information anonymously without traceability?
- Want to destroy search engine ranking?
- ??
Anyone have a clear understanding of this?
As near as I can tell, these bots (I would call them vandalbots) are
simply
out to maliciously damage wikis,
I'm not sure I agree - the defacement comes regularly from a wide range of IP - I would assume a bot net. The defacement often has the same words. I could see this as a way of passing code words by foreign agents - much to much trouble just for true vandalism. I suppose the NSA would know about it in that case. By splattering the messages across a large number of wikis there would be no meaningful IP trail to the recipient.
A CAPTCHA has stopped it for now...
Karl Schmidt EMail Karl@xtronics.com Transtronics, Inc. WEB http://xtronics.com 3209 West 9th Street Ph (785) 841-3089 Lawrence, KS 66049 FAX (785) 841-0434
True wisdom is knowing what we don't know; True maturity is being comfortable with the idea of not knowing. -KPS
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