Spam Patrol

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Contents 1 Trends 1.1 Recent reports 1.2 Previous reports 2 Usage 2.1 Spam detection, removal, and reporting 2.2 Spam filter requests 3 SpamBlacklist Extension 3.1 Installation 3.2 Optional Global (External) Blacklists 4 Spammer modus operandi 5 See also

Trends

Post in reverse chronology - most recent at top

Recent reports

• 2010-08-20 - removed spam link from Missing & Found, blocked User:Andrea
• 2010-08-12 - no new spam x2
• 2010-08-03 - removed spam from Crisis Wiki Teams

Previous reports

• 2010-07-22 - no new spam x3
• 2010-07-06 - removed spam from Hurricane_Ike_GIS_Resources and blocked User:Vsimon213
• 2010-07-03 - removed spam from Time Off and blocked User:JanetHicks
• 2010-06-26 - no new spam x2
• 2010-06-02 - removed spam from IRC Client and blocked ArielRowland
• 2010-05-27 - no new spam x2
• 2010-05-10 - removed User:Dsafdfrewqwe
• 2010-05-04 - no new spam x1
• 2010-04-11 - removed spam post, blocked user Jeststeffle
• 2010-03-31 - no new spam x1
• 2010-03-29 - removed spammer FreeWebMessengerForYahoo ; blocked njtom\.net and \.ch and \.id and \.ru
• 2010-03-25 - no new spam x1
• 2010-03-13 - removed spammer HealthBenefitsOfPushups and blocked domain vremedia\.com
• 2010-03-10 - no new spam x7
• 2010-02-25 - removed spam post, blocked user and domains simon888\.com tritigerdesigns\.com
• 2010-02-24 - removed spam post, blocked user and domain 800millions\.com
• 2010-02-17 - no new spam x10
• 2010-02-03 - removed spam post and blocked User:Maketeethwhiterfromhome382
• 2010-02-03 - no new spam x11
• 2010-01-25 - removed spam post and blocked User:DeanDanner
• 2010-01-13 - removed spam post and blocked User:Businessobjectsonlinecourses865
• 2009-12-28 - reversed 1 spam post and blocked Rushessay
• 2009-12-24 - removed 1 spam page
• 2009-12-15 - removed 2 spam pages, blocked spammer, added 4 domains to blacklist
• 2009-11-12 - add iibf\.ege\.edu\.tr to blacklist
• 2009-11-12 - removed/restored 5 spammed/vandalized pages and blocked 4 IP addresses from anonymous users + Larryhaynes
• 2009-11-11 - removed/restored 4 spammed/vandalized pages and blocked 4 IP addresses from anonymous users
• 2009-11-10 - removed/restored 3 spammed/vandalized pages and blocked 3 IP addresses from anonymous users
• 2009-07-09 - removed 3 spam pages, protected 1 page temporarily, blocked 4 spam user names, added 44 domain names to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
• 2009-07-01 - 1am PST - temporarily blocking .com domains until 7-5-2009 MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
• 2009-07-01 - removed 8 spam pages, blocked 8 spammers, added 87 spam domains to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
• 2009-06-29 - removed 8 spam pages, blocked 8 spammers, added 89 spam domains to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
• 2009-06-14 - removed 1 spam page, blocking all \.ru sites MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
• 2009-06-12 - removed 1 spam page, added spam url to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
• 2009-05-26 - removed 21 spam pages, added s1\.shard\.jp to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
• 2009-05-22 - deleted 89 spam pages, rolled back one spam, added filter to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
• 2009-05-20 - deleted nonesense page and blocked user
• 2009-04-11 - deleted 3 Graffiti project pages
• 2009-02-19 - removed 1 spam post- blocked spammer
• 2009-02-12 - removed 1 spam post - blocked spammer
• 2009-02-11 - removed 1 spam post - blocked spammer
• 2009-01-08 - removed 4 spam posts - blocked spammer
• 2008-12-28 - removed one spam post
• 2008-12-26 - removed one spam post
• 2008-12-04 - removed one spam post, keyword: Brainpulse
• 2008-12-02 - removed one spam post
• 2008-11-23 - removed one spam post and blocked 5 domain names
• 2008-11-22 - rolled back changes to Scientology telephone number and URL which redirected visitor to hostile web site. See User talk:FredricLRice
• 2008-11-14 - removed one spam post and blocked 5 domain names
• 2008-11-12 - removed one spam post and blocked 5 domain names
• 2008-11-10 - removed two spam posts and blocked 8 domain names
• 2008-11-08 - removed gibberish from Blogs and blocked user
• 2008-09-18 - deleted gibberish page and removed gibberish from another page - blocked to anonymous users
• 2008-09-18 - deleted spam page Category:Forum/w/index.php - blocked spammer - added netfirms.com to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
• 2008-09-16 - removed spam from Government resources: Arkansas - added spam addresses to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist - blocked spammer 89.149.253.14 --John 15:52, 16 September 2008 (CDT)
• 2008-09-11 - Monitoring unregistered user for suspicious activity: Special:Contributions/205.144.50.1 --John
• 2008-09-11 - Removed vandal page [[Hurricane Gustav Wiki:Current events]] and blocked IP 141.51.112.154 --John
• 2008-09-10 - Vandalism reversed on Talk:Main Page --John
• 2008-08-31 - No previous reports

Usage

Spam detection, removal, and reporting

Many of these instructions require an administrator/sysop account

• Watch Recent changes
• Tip: Use RSS feed from Recent changes page to review changes quickly
• Look for spam indications, see #Spammer_modus_operandi
• Look at page history, compare versions, undo or rollback spam to last good post
• If undo or rollback is not an option, use edit to remove spam
• If a page is getting spammed frequently by anonymous users, block anonymous users for that page for a finite period
• Block anonymous spammers for infinity
• Regular users should login to make new posts easier to monitor
• Report spam removal

date - spam posts removed - pages affected - keyword

2008-08-31 - removed 1 spam post - [[Spam Patrol]] - keyword: example-domain.net

Spam filter requests

• Spam-blacklist requests:
  • request goes here to add or remove.
• Spam-whitelist requests:
  • request goes here to add or remove

Note: If a domain is blocked in the blacklist, a specific URL can be unblocked in the whitelist

SpamBlacklist Extension

Installation

• See also extension matrix: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix
• Read this: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SpamBlacklist
• Download files: http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/SpamBlacklist/
  • [COMPLETE - DZ] (oops! It's too easy to download the wrong files - For simplicity, use the next URL - jw)
• Download files: http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/SpamBlacklist/
  • [COMPLETE - JW] 9-1-2008 10:42PM PST
• Put downloaded files into folder: /extensions/SpamBlacklist/ [COMPLETE - DZ][COMPLETE - JW] 9-1-2008 10:42PM PST
• Local blacklist default: MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist UPDATE AS NEEDED [READY - JW]
• Local whitelist default: MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist UPDATE AS NEEDED [READY - JW]
• Add to LocalSettings.php [DONE - JW] 9-1-2008 10:42PM PST

  require_once( "$IP/extensions/SpamBlacklist/SpamBlacklist.php" );

TEST: blacklist and whitelist on local machine: badspammer\.com and goodspammer\.com

TEST ERRATIC: http://badspammer.com/ works on discussion page but not here - seems to be context sensitive.

TEST WORKS: http://www.badspammer*com/ added to blacklist [DONE - JW]

TEST WORKS: http://www.goodspammer.com/ added to blacklist and whitelist [DONE - JW] - whitelist will be needed if/when global blacklists are added

Optional Global (External) Blacklists

• Add optional links for files, database/title, or external blacklists to the array $wgSpamBlacklistFiles in LocalSettings.php

 require_once( "$IP/extensions/SpamBlacklist/SpamBlacklist.php" );
 $wgSpamBlacklistFiles = array(
 // local blacklist file - optional
 //   "$IP/extensions/SpamBlacklist/local_blacklist", 
 //DB: database title - local wiki page tile = 'spam_blacklist' - optional and in addition to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
 //   "DB: wikidb spam_blacklist",   //   match wikidb to the value of $wgDBname in LocalSettings.php
 //Remote wiki blacklist - optional
 //   "http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spam_blacklist&action=raw&sb_ver=1", // Wikimedia's list
 );

 TEST STATUS PENDING

• Example of external list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist

Spammer modus operandi

• Spammers use affiliate marketing to raise money.
• Spammers target wikis to boost affiliate ranking on search engines. (see Spamdexing)
• Spammers leave finger prints:
  • URLs they want indexed by search engines
  • For sale words: drugs, gambling & sex (what else is there?)
  • Markup unique to spammers, see next item.
• Spambots frequently make wiki link lists invisible by enclosing them with DIV elements that have the style height attribute equal 1px. Therefore, you will not see the spam unless you view it with history/compare or view it in edit mode.
  • Some spambots make no attempt to hide links; use highly variable URLs; and use no key words to block, e.g. [http://blah98.yada24~info 44][http://blah99.yada25~info 45], etc. These spambots often trash the regular content by encoding <,>,& into HTML entities.
• Wiki articles with direct links from the main page are high value targets for spammers, however, any editable wiki page is vulnerable. By setting your search preferences to include all namespaces, you can find the obscured spam locations using the search box.
• The same spammer may revisit a page with different Usernames in rapid sequence to add more spam, limiting the rollback feature and requiring the cleanup to use edit/deletes.
• Another spammer trick is to insert a URL somewhere in the body of an article using brackets only. e.g. [http://www.birth-control.freeservers-dot-com/] would appear as [1]
• By removing spam from articles the spammers' needs are frustrated because the history pages which retain the spam have meta tags for robots which say noindex,nofollow and the spam is no longer indexed by search engines.
• Hopefully, by removing spam quickly, spammers will see this wiki as a waste of time and they will go elsewhere to do their dirty deeds.
• For more information about wiki spammers: [2][3][4]

See also