City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Spammers!!!!

Archiviste

By Archiviste,
Posted on: 2011-12-22 06:20 in Suggestions and Ideas

 

Posted

We all know, we don't like them, they clutter up the Help chat and our ignore list. So here's an idea I had last night! Ignore a highlighted word in chat, for example; A spammer comes on chat and says 'Go to "this site" (not puting name of site in text) and buy influence.' We could highlight a specific word or website, and block all messages containing those word. Then we would have solved the spammer porblem.

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Posted

It would be good idea...

Xcpt $pammer$ w0uld fynd a way 2 get @rr0und th@t s0meh0w.

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Posted

Interesting concept...

1) Blocking websites
This might not work: the RMT could then use a (perfectly legitimate) redirection service like Tiny URL to circomvent the "ignored" website, and simply change the redirected URL on a regular basis (kinda like they're already doing with temp accounts).

2) Blocking words:
Might get more mileage out of this one, but then again the RMT could borrow a page from the email spam gamebook and slightly alter the words to bypass the filter, ex. "'Go to "this site" (not putting name of site in text) and b.uy inf.luence".

On the other hand, this kind of filter could be used to block those annoying "PL me" messages we get sometimes


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sukothai View Post
Not when you highlight the website. The always post their websites in the chat.
So they post their site - let's make one up called COHUsesInf.com.

You block that.

They change it to C O H Uses INF dot com.

You block that phrase. Either that or you have to block each word - which could cause problems.

Then they use C O H U S E S I N F D O T C O M.... and so forth.

That's why lists like that don't work.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stormbird View Post
That's why lists like that don't work.
Stripping out spaces and converting the text to lowercase would allow the string to be matched easily using common string comparison. Substitution? Regular expressions EXIST to help with that.

I'd love to see a client-level option to filter messages containing specific phrases/kewords, but TBH I'd be in favor of a more drastic countermeasure.

Think causing the game installation used by the spammer to self-uninstall, with several means of preventing them from reinstalling it without having to reinstall the OS first. Altough "just" a 24-hour blocking of the particular IP address from connecting to the servers would suffice.

 

Posted

or just don't announce the whole damn thing and they wouldn't know what hit them :P


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Something for ppl to use

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthHorseman View Post
Stripping out spaces and converting the text to lowercase would allow the string to be matched easily using common string comparison. Substitution? Regular expressions EXIST to help with that.
So how much additional CPU time would you like to have the client (or server) spend on that? And there are a lot of ways to substitute.
Quote:
I'd love to see a client-level option to filter messages containing specific phrases/kewords, but TBH I'd be in favor of a more drastic countermeasure.
Ask in the AE forums how well such a filter works (and is regarded) - just with our own basic "censoring" list.
Quote:
Think causing the game installation used by the spammer to self-uninstall, with several means of preventing them from reinstalling it without having to reinstall the OS first. Although "just" a 24-hour blocking of the particular IP address from connecting to the servers would suffice.
See also "how to piss off a customer when this happens by accident, and give your game a bad reputation." Especially if it's buggy. (Myth - or maybe Myth II, while not doing it for *this* reason, had an uninstall bug on the initial release that wiped the entire hard drive. Now imagine something like that slipping through where the *user* doesn't initiate the uninstall.)

And blocking is problematical itself. The spammers don't care - and they don't care that end users can get hit by this as well.

This is a (predicted and *not* looked forward to before it happened) side effect of having "free" accounts. Spammers were locked down pretty well under the old trial vs subscription, where they could only mewl uselessly in local about their BS - and that I only saw on Freedom. Now? Free accounts left and right with access to Help.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lycanus View Post
Personally, I'd rather not see this. I haven't seen or received a spam message for over a year and I play at least once a week, usually more like once a day....so don't really think its necessary
I was playing on Virtue I think it was Thursday evening EU time and had 2 come up one after the other on the help channel, just hit report spammer and carried on its a shame there is not a way to stop them permanently,

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stormbird View Post
So how much additional CPU time would you like to have the client (or server) spend on that? And there are a lot of ways to substitute.
No need to be hostile. As a programmer (well, Computer Science student who does a lot of programming) I need to tell you that you're severely overestimating the resources needed. Basic string operations are extremely cheap in terms of processing power, and so can be regular expressions if implemented right.
Not only such a filter would be purely optional, it would only have to monitor messages received from several specific channels - unless I'm missing something, Local, Help, Team and League are all that's needed - and each message would only have to be checked once. That severely limits the amount of input to start with, and the fact there is a maximum length limit for chat messages also helps.
Bottom line, there's plenty of ways to make such a filter effective while not affecting the game's CPU use and memory consumption noticeably if at all.
Quote:
See also "how to piss off a customer when this happens by accident, and give your game a bad reputation." Especially if it's buggy.
And that is why I never said I considered it a realistic option.

 

Posted

In another thread I suggested adding web sites to a content filter. They can get round it of course but any way that do that makes it more effort for people to work out their address, which means they are less likely to bother.

Its also something that could be easily maintained through a server side list, rather than needing a client update.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthHorseman View Post
No need to be hostile.
Asking a question is not "hostility." If I'd said "What are you, an idiot?" THAT would be hostile. However, I did not. I'm asking a legitimate question.
Quote:
As a programmer (well, Computer Science student who does a lot of programming) I need to tell you that you're severely overestimating the resources needed.
Given (a)how much chatting goes on in how many channels, and (b) how much seemingly innocuous things we're told (by the devs) are incredibly CPU intensive in this game, I'd call overestimation the safe bet.

Wanted: Origin centric story arcs.
If you've only played an AT once (one set combo) and "hate" it - don't give up. Roll a different combo. It may just be those sets not clicking for you.

 

Posted

1) Receive Spam
2) Ignore Spammer and Report for being a RMTer (Believe there is an option like that)
3)Spam List is filled
4)Delete top few spammers
5) Rinse and Repeat

I personally do not see many spammers and find that this would be too much. See AE where I can't even use the word "SPIDER" without the system acting up, if there was a filtering system.

We have the ignore list, utilize it.

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