Puppylinux.org - spam blocking, broken links and more

[puppian]

As some of you might notice, all download links at puppylinux.org were broken yesterday. It is caused by a silly mistake made by me. I was testing a cache system for the download section but forgot that download links on a static, cached page won't redirect correctly The cache system had been disabled and the links should work ok now (I also took the chance to fix some links that were broken for other reasons too). Thank you for those who have sent me email/pm reporting the problem

Yesterday the site received a lot of spam too. They were all from one registered user. I suspect that the spam was done manually. He even got a avatar! In most of the comments he kept repeating things like "that puppy issss sssooooo cuuutttteeee" Anyway all comments / shouts by that user had been deleted and he is now banned.

To protect the site better I have just installed a security addon. I guess it only prevent automated spam but not manual ones however... Some benefits of the addon include preventing spammers from reading everything on the site, harvesting email addresses or posting spam directly to your site; saving bandwidth generated by spammers, etc. I am a little bit worried about the server resources the addon will take up though since the script needs to analyze all access to the site. If the load generated is too high the addon will be disabled.

Please note that the addon may erroneously block legitimate access too. So if you are blocked wrongly you can,
a) make a note of the e-mail address and technical support key shown on the error page. Then click the link to “fix it yourself

[puppian]

By the way, if the site appears to be abnormally slow or fast to you, please post your experience here. This helps us to determine whether the new security addon should stay or not.
If you have any idea who the spammer I mentioned in the last post is, post a reply too (I hope he's not one of our Puppy users...). His IP address is 75.35.246.36 . Maybe the forum administrators/moderators can check if there's anyone registered here using that IP address?

[puppian]

Cache system modified and re-enabled for the download section.

[amish]

include preventing spammers from reading everything on the site, harvesting email addresses...Please note that the addon may erroneously block legitimate access too.

that's really unfortunate. i alway use a variety of browsers and proxies, and any measures to prevent site Reading are a major pita and i just avoid sites that do that. oh well. things work poorly enough without making them harder, i always think. but for posting... hmm. please don't make it too hard for us legit folks. i hate when i can't even use a site because they've made it too much of a burden... but i know you said we can contact you if we can't get it working

Lastly, a new weblink catergory called "Puppy Info" has been added. If you own a site that provide cool and unique information of puppy or linux=

very cool. when my site has enough unique puppy content i'll link up.

[puppian]

very cool. when my site has enough unique puppy content i'll link up.

Great! Hope to see your submission soon

[puppian]

here's a latest submission from Russo,
http://puppylinux.org/user/weblinks.php?cat_id=10

[thegoldenstrand]

also just typed in http:/puppylinux.org and it said something about site recovering from possible attack.

So.. sorry to hear site is having problems.. I was thinking oops.. did windows block me from another linux site??

Mike

[JohnMurga]

By the way, if the site appears to be abnormally slow or fast to you, please post your experience here. This helps us to determine whether the new security addon should stay or not.
If you have any idea who the spammer I mentioned in the last post is, post a reply too (I hope he's not one of our Puppy users...). His IP address is 75.35.246.36 . Maybe the forum administrators/moderators can check if there's anyone registered here using that IP address?

I checked, although to do that I had to convert the IP to hex (as that's how it's stored in the DB).

I can't see anyone ever having logged in with that address.

Cheers
JohnM

[puppian]

Thanks a lot John

Most pages of the site won't load earlier today. It seems that some spambots were scanning the site. The security addon mentioned above is extended to other folders (like one managed by raffy. I hope he won't mind ) now to see if things get better.
I think that has solved the problem. The site is now reopened and seems reasonably fast for me.

Edit - looks like the spammers are watching my post... the site become very unresponsive just after i made this post. Another wave of attack? Or it's just that the site is too busy? Any one find the site slow too?

[puppian]

Security level further increased (better not give too much info for obviously reasons )