Attn: Would-be new members, registration rules and info!

[sperry]

2013-11-22 UPDATE 2:
Registration is back open. I installed some new anti-spammer software that will hopefully prevent the influx of spammers. If it doesn't work, I will be turning registration back off. As always, a "real name" will be required during registration because spammers like to use "123456", and we are still limiting certain email addresses (mostly stuff from Russia, but gmail is allowed now).

Click here to register!

2013-11-22 UPDATE:
Registration is temporarily closed. Somehow we ended up on some spammer bot list and are getting hammered... more than 100 spam accounts have been created since yesterday. If you are a real person and would like to register, please contact administrator@seccs.org and we will create you an account. Sorry for the inconvenience. We'll probably have to leave registrations closed for a while because neither reCAPTCHA nor our home-grown registration questions are preventing the spammers.



2009-02-24 UPDATE: We've upgraded to the most recent vBulletin release, and are now able to re-open normal registrations! If the spammers crack the reCaptcha protection, we'll have to revert to registration by email, but for now, we're back to allowing automatic registrations:

Click here to register!



Update:
The below rules will still be in effect when registration is enabled, but we've since completely disabled registrations. Please email us at administrator@seccs.org and we'll manually create you an account. Please include the username you would like in the email and we'll set it up for you using the email address you contacted us from as your contact email address for the forums.



Original Post:

Due to recent heavy spammer attacks, we've had to tighten our registration process.

First, we will no longer accept new members that use GMail or Russian email accounts. Virtually all of the spammers have been using gmail or mail.ru for their registration emails. However, if you are currently registered under one of these accounts, you will be allowed to keep using it.

Second, all new registrants will have to be authorized by a moderator. If you register and don't get activated right away, please send an email to administrator@seccs.org and let us know your new username and an administrator will activate your account ASAP.

We're sorry we have to enact these sorts of measures, but apparently some people out there think they have a right to waste our time and bandwidth on the off chance that there are still some people out there that don't know how to find out about porn, weight loss, cell phones, and Viagra on the internet without it being forced down their throats.

[knucklesplitter]

I dunno about the gmail restriction. Almost everybody I know uses gmail.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by knucklesplitter

I dunno about the gmail restriction. Almost everybody I know uses gmail.

I'm not happy about it, but the 10 spammers per hour w/ gmail accounts is forcing my hand.

[cody]

Captcha isn't an easy option I take it?

[Nick Koan]

i think vbullitens capcha is broken

[cody]

Who's mywww.seccs.org?

[sperry]

The capcha for our 3.6.x version of vB has apparently been cracked. There's a better one with the 3.7.x branch, but the upgrade is a bit of work and I haven't done it yet.

As far as the new users, they show up on our users list, but they're all pending authorization. Once I go and delete them, they should be off the list. Looks like mywww.seccs.org is just some username generated by a bot.

[sperry]

Ugh. I'm tired of cleaning up and banning the perpetual influx of spammer accounts, not to mention the overhead of our server having to process so many bogus registrations.

Registrations are once again closed. If anyone wishes to join, please feel free to email us at administrator@seccs.org and we'll create you an account.

[sperry]

Bump.

Registration is now open since we've upgraded to vB 3.8.x.

[Nick Koan]

I've temporarily closed registration again. If you absolutely need an account this weekend, e-mail administrator@seccs.org for an account.

[sperry]

Registration is re-opened.

[Nick Koan]

Registration closed again.

[sperry]

Registration re-opened. Let's see how well some changes to the registration process work... adding new registration questions and enabling Akismet.

[sybir]

Originally Posted by sperry

enabling Akismet.

Gesundheit.

[rory_a]

Sperry - just wanted to let you know seccs is not alone - i-shred got hit hard in the last couple of weeks - nearly 400 new threads, over 1000 new posts, over 1000 new members, all spam. I started reCaptcha on it, using vBulletin 4.0.7. Don't see an email registration confirmation option on mine, but I'm trying to track it down. Frickin ridiculous.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by rory_a

Sperry - just wanted to let you know seccs is not alone - i-shred got hit hard in the last couple of weeks - nearly 400 new threads, over 1000 new posts, over 1000 new members, all spam. I started reCaptcha on it, using vBulletin 4.0.7. Don't see an email registration confirmation option on mine, but I'm trying to track it down. Frickin ridiculous.

Ouch.

Definitely get your email confirms running. For a while that was what we were using as our best defense... 'cause I went and disallowed gmail, yahoo, and other popular and/or russian email domains. It sucks for people if they can't use gmail to register, but like 80% of the spammers were using gmail accounts.

Right now, on both SECCS and RenoSCCA, I've ditched reCAPTCHA until they improve their algorithm for picking the text. By switching to the challenge questions, we should have decent luck because even the human spammers won't know "any three letter model name for a subaru" or "any SCCA solo class acronym" without looking it up.

[rory_a]

lol - guess I could use the challenge question "what brand is also called the "big b"".

[Lena01]

hi everybody .. i am a new member here ..