Swampland vote spammers

Post by **dlh** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 5:15 am

User: Sean

Edit: 11:20 PM EST, on swampland2

TiTnAsS · Post by **TiTnAsS** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 5:21 am

Mabye time to impose a 1 vote start every 15 minutes? And make vote kicks temporarily ban the person for 30 minutes... Should i post this in development area? lol

Post by **Lucifer** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 5:21 am

You know, I've noticed a significant decrease in vote spamming ever since voting and starting polls lost its anonymity. I've also noticed less people getting kicked when it does come to a vote. I'm happy with it.

Jonathan · Post by **Jonathan** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 5:26 am

TiTnAsS: Would be fun for people who get kicked because they are a chatbot for a while.

TiTnAsS · Post by **TiTnAsS** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 5:28 am

Well, I can't think of a solution other then that except getting rid of vote kicks, not like it helps the way it is, they come right back....

Post by **dlh** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 5:39 am

My solution: after x amount of failed votes, you lose the ability to call/vote on items for y time. This setting should be remembered even if you disconnect/reconnect. Or another option, after x amount of failed votes, you get kicked, and lose the ability to call votes/vote when you reconnect.

TiTnAsS · Post by **TiTnAsS** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 5:41 am

Perfect

..

Post by **dlh** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 5:56 am

Here is another vote spammer. I sent this as a PM to swampy (never got a response).

User: Weatherman
Time: June 28, 2005 2:00AM EST

Edit: I hope your logs go way back

Phytotron · Post by **Phytotron** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 6:15 am

That Sean guy is a spammer in general. The couple times I've seen him he was repeatedly filling the screen with his instachats (the defaults).

I told him to quit a couple times, told him, "seriously, stop; you're being really obnoxious," he FU'd me, and left -- which, come to think of it, was rather courteous on his part as compared to some people, heh.

TiTnAsS · Post by **TiTnAsS** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 6:29 am

Actually now that i think back, i have also seen Seans string of instant chat spam a few times... -_-

Post by **Lucifer** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 7:47 am

So I was looking through the code seeing how easy it would be to add some checks for vote spamming and found this:

Code: Select all

        // check for spam
        if ( voter->IsSpamming( m.SenderID() ) )

}

So, is there already a check for vote spamming? (I'm looking now)

Website · Post by **Z-Man** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 8:30 am

Heh, yeah. I forgot about that, too. All that would be required would be to turn the 50.0f into a configuration variable, apparently

Post by **dlh** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:57 am

And hes back (Sean).

Post by **Lucifer** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 10:24 am

z-man wrote:Heh, yeah. I forgot about that, too. All that would be required would be to turn the 50.0f into a configuration variable, apparently

I did an evil thing. I added the two lines and modified the third based on this post and then didn't test it.

Falling asleep..... (I built it, at least, and it compiles)

I set the default to 50.0f, and the new config variable is VOTING_SPAM, but I don't know what it means.

Website · Post by **Z-Man** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 8:50 pm

I refactored things a bit and moved the setting to another place; I noticed it would not work the way I suggested because the configuration is read after the value is used only.

Four new settings exist:
SPAM_PROTECTION_VOTE/CHAT: extra factors that go to SPAM_PROTECTION; the product gives the amout of seconds it takes for one spam point to be forgotten.
VOTING_SPAM_ISSUE: number of spam points you get for issuing a vote (was 0 before)
VOTING_SPAM_REJECT: number of spam points you get when your vote is rejected.

But all of this is really useless as long as the kicked spammer can just come back and continue. Who's for a quick-and-dirty kickban for spammers? (Persistent only for the current server session, possibly a match or a given time)? A console command and new votes would exist for that, too.