[SAC] Wiki Spammer - even more elaborate fake user

[Christian Willmes]

To get back to this matter.

I configured the ConfirmAccounts Extension to send notifications of 
incoming requests to this list, so that anybody on this list could take 
action. But the list administrator, would not allow the notifications to 
be send to this list, maybe for good reason, because its considerable 
traffic. Now the mails go directly into my mailbox (I am willing to 
re-configure it to an official address).

None the less, someone has to take care of reviewing and handling wiki 
account request until first week of October from this Friday on, because 
I will not be available during this time.

Cheers,
Christian


Am 04.09.2016 um 12:17 schrieb Christian Willmes:
> Hello,
>
> I unblocked Harry, because he is definitely not a spammer! In contrary,
> he offered me a lot of really helpful information about how to fight
> spam in a mediawiki, because he has knowledge from the OpenStreetMap and
> the Open Knowledge Foundations wiki instances on this topic.
>
> I recently blogged about the problem, after which Harry contacted me:
>
> http://cwillmes.de/blog/2016/08/02/the-daily-kindergardening-of-osgeo-wiki-spammers/
>
> Beside this, from next week (12th September) I will be mostly away from
> internet until first week of October.
>
> I would like to ask others from this list to also decide on incoming
> account requests:
>
> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Special:ConfirmAccounts
>
> Currently we have about 3-5 requests a day to decide on. Additionaly, we
> need to check the recent changes for span and block and mass delete
> spammers and their contents (easy done via the block and mass delete
> functionality).
>
> If you want to help, and do not have the according permissions in the
> wiki, say so, and I will grand you this rights.
>
> Regards,
> Christian
>
>
> On 04.09.2016 09:36, Markus Neteler wrote:
>> On Sun, Sep 4, 2016 at 2:05 AM, Brian M Hamlin <maplabs at light42.com> wrote:
>>> Hi SAC -
>>>
>>>    a quick look shows a real Harry Wood, who is quite involved withOSM and
>>> OSM Wiki.. SO perhaps Sandro is right .. I dont know what to do.. the wiki
>>> is valuable to OSGeo.org.
>> Looking at
>> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Harry_Wood
>> there is tons of spam which was recently created through this account.
>> So, perhaps compromised?
>>
>> When unlocking, for sure the pw must be changed.
>>
>> Quick question: why redirect to a "spam" page rather than deleting the
>> spam pages completely? With the redirect still the ugly page titles
>> remain which carry spam messages.
>>
>>>    In the past it was enough to check for spam and then put that fake user
>>> out..
>>> This occurrance ranks as a new level of complexity in an attack..
>> I fully agree.
>>
>>>    Years ago, before Christian W. started, I was awarded a star of Spam
>>> Blocker for my wiki tending efforts. Now, I dont know how to react to this..
>>> the spammers are certainly winning,
>>> they are paid pennies for this ?
>> I suspect yes. Yet I don't understand why since the spam content is
>> rather useless, not even professional. Weird.
>>
>> Best
>> Markus
>>
>>> and yet they foil diligent defense.
>>>    --Brian M Hamlin
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