| General > General Technical Chat |
| Using VPNs for "privacy" on forums, and forum spammers |
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| ataradov:
--- Quote from: fordem on May 06, 2021, 08:01:09 pm ---what stops the VPN provider from snooping? Second - the encryption exists only between the VPN user and the VPN server - the data then travels unencrypted from the VPN server to it's final destination - the "relevant authorities" need only to "snoop" on the VPN provider's exit point to be able to access all the "paranoid users" unencrypted data - the data belonging to all the paranoid users. --- End quote --- If traffic goes over HTTPS, then none of those people could snoop without some serious certificate tampering. One of the bigger things VPN protects against are non-securable parts of the process, like DNS lookups. And that is less of a problem with DoH becoming a thing. The privacy part of the VPN comes from the fact that a company located in a remote place will probably have no interest in a person in another country. Unlike customer's ISP, which has all the incentive to grab as much data as possible. If you are wanted to the point where it makes sense to track your behaviour across continents, then you are screwed no matter what. But this is not the case for majority of people. |
| BrokenYugo:
I use a VPN on my desktop machine, because I'm too lazy to set it up to only run the torrent traffic through the VPN. |
| tooki:
--- Quote from: peter-h on May 06, 2021, 06:29:39 am ---These are not bots. We are using a hidden google catpcha which is pretty good at blocking bots. They are humans and they put a lot of time into this. They sign up and then go away for a week (because most forums don't let you post for a few days) and then come back and dump their stuff. --- End quote --- It may actually be bots, believe it or not. I remember reading about one way crooks defeat captchas so their bots can do their bidding: they forward the captcha onto a free porn site where horny humans have to solve the captcha. Then, armed with the right answer, the bot can solve the captcha on the target site. Dunno if this still works with modern captchas, it’s been a while. |
| PlainName:
Disclaimer: I don't run a web forum anymore, and when I did it was for a small number of users. However, I did write a bot detector and auto-banner for a popular online game. The logic behind it was infallible, but eventually I came to realise I was wrong, and some obvious bots actually weren't. OK, on with the show... --- Quote ---Do "normal people" use a VPN routinely for forum browsing? If so, what is the point, for non illegal activities? --- End quote --- Oh dear. Personally I don't use one but I am aware of people that do, for one or several of many reasons. Outstanding ones: * Your ISP is not net-neutral and prioritizes certain traffic. The VPN hides that one's traffic is low-priority rubbish and it doesn't get clobbered. * Your ISP monitors your data so they can spam you with 'relevant' adverts. And/or sell your stats onwards. Hey, being a Brit, don't you remember Phorm? The VPN prevents that. Etc. --- Quote ---These are not bots. We are using a hidden google catpcha which is pretty good at blocking bots. --- End quote --- See my note above re logic. They could be bots, it's just that the bot offloads captcha decoding to wetware. Rooms of people sit in front of a PC and answer dumb questions, identify objects, etc. They have no idea where it comes from or what it's for, just that they will make a pittance if they do enough of them. https://humancoder.com/ |
| AntiProtonBoy:
I use VPNs and Tor all the time, and I think this is becoming a new norm. As for eliminating spammers, you have few options: * Gatekeeping strategies that recruits members only via invites. Forum is either read only or inaccessible until the user is invited somehow. * Sandboxing new users into a "introduce yourself" sub-forum. Once the new users reached X amount of non-spam posts, they are granted full access to the rest of the forum. * Organise a vigilant moderator team who are effective at cleaning up rubbish. * Roll your own captcha that has Q&A about specific interests that spammers are unable to answer. For example electronics questions that only electronics geeks could answer. * Combination of the above. The truth is, once your forum is specifically targeted, you'll have a hard time eliminating all spam with one easy step. |
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