What is with all the village idiots???

[Marvin]

I was a bit bored waiting for some stuff to download and so had a quick look through the latest member lists. There seem to be an awful lot of "village idiots" joining up from Village Idiot. Is this a new cult or sect that I should be aware of? Has L. Ron Hubbard got his hooks into Australia or has energypolice been procreating??
What is the story??

[gstark]

They're spammers that try to register, usually using scripts. We've implemented a few changes in the login scripts that prevent most of them now, but we still get the odd dickhead turning up fom time to time.

But they're the ones we've caught before they've barely had time to breathe here, let alone post any of the crap they try to peddle. I change their passwords, and update the profile to more correctly reflect the true level of their intelligence and contribution to the world.

[Marvin]

 LOL. Well, I like your thinking on the renaming. Unfortunately they probably won't actually see their new identity.

[gstark]

:lol: LOL. Well, I like your thinking on the renaming. Unfortunately they probably won't actually see their new identity.

No, they most certainly won't. That's a good thing, I suspect.

[Steffen]

They're spammers that try to register, usually using scripts.

I just stumbled across this site, about using captchas creatively in order to tell humans from scripts. I found it quite funny...

http://hotcaptcha.com

EDIT: ok, linking doesn't work, just cut&paste the URL...

Cheers
Steffen.

[DVEous]

... Obsolete ...

[gstark]

Adam,

There's still a few more tricks you can employ to beat them. With VC and member activation, we were still seeing three or four bots - or paid pricks - registering.

Have a look here and here for a couple more ideas.

We're now getting a aabout one paid prick monthly - no way to shut them out - and then just the true VI.

[Willy wombat]

How does one qualify as a "paid prick". Sounds like my dream job?

Good to see you keeping a lid on things Gary, I loathe Spam.

[gstark]

How does one qualify as a "paid prick". Sounds like my dream job?

Not so sure about it being a dream job.

Apparantly some spammers promise to pay others to manually log into and register at sites like this.

If you think sending spam is sub-moronic, what must these idiots be?