Doll Bar & Grill

The Lobby => General Discussion => Topic started by: noquiexis on April 15, 2022, 09:37:28 PM

Title: Mystery Guest
Post by: noquiexis on April 15, 2022, 09:37:28 PM
     From 1950 to 1967, a TV show called What's My Line (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_My_Line%3F) had a Mystery Guest come before a sometimes blindfolded panel, often disguising their voice. The object of the "20 Questions" game was for the panel to guess the person's identity or their profession.

     For the last three weeks, someone has been trying to log into the two active forums at Arimecibo Island using phony email addresses. I originally uploaded SMF 2.1RC4 to the server without doing much of any modification, since it was not meant to be an active forum. Member registration was immediate. When SMF released SMF 2.1.0, I upgraded to that version, but forgot to change the registration to "Email verification". Some jackass spammed a bunch of horseshit, which I deleted and then banned those accounts. I did change the registration mode when I saw those. I clean out the error log when I see these, so I know when the new ones come in. Whoever it is spoofs their IP address after a few failed attempts, but these are within minutes of each other.

     SMF 2.0.x does not log the email address for failed logins, but SMF 2.1.x does. Some of those email address are the ones I banned, but the jackass keeps trying the Brute-force Attack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-force_attack) on both forums. You'd think the jackass would have learned by now. I occasionally check the error log here, but I have not seen that same activity here. There are a number of spam entries in the DB&G error log, but this is not the same.

     I do not usually chase down error log entries, since most of them are "Unspecified". A lot of them involve the same line of code in the same file, so they may be related to a modification that was made after the software was installed.

O0 (https://dollbarandgrill.com/forum/Smileys/solosmileys/angel2.gif)  C:-)
Title: Re: Mystery Guest
Post by: noquiexis on September 09, 2022, 12:15:58 PM
     The http://www.arimecibo.com/ website was offline this morning (9 Sep 2022), apparently due to weather problems somewhere near the server. "Most of our servers (https://www.hostgator.com/help/article/hostgator-data-centers) reside in Provo, Utah, and Houston, Texas, with some residing in other locations." I got into chat with tech support. First the tech wrote something about "cache/" being at fault, then blamed it on the local weather. Whatever was wrong was corrected during the chat conversation. http://www.arimecibo.com/ is back online.

     Other than the bonehead who has been trying to log in with a phony email address (he never got the activation email), and one question about the DB&G being offline, no one else has logged in to post anything on any of the forums during the last few months.

:-X :-\ :-X
Title: Re: Mystery Guest
Post by: DG on October 17, 2022, 11:45:39 AM
That sounds like a lot of computer drama stuff.  Sorry, Noq.  Yeah, I am rarely on here or ODC and have begun to pull away from TDF even.  It's just that things have been changing here at home and I have other obligations that are constantly occupying my time.
Title: Re: Mystery Guest
Post by: noquiexis on November 29, 2022, 09:51:10 PM
     I check the Arimecibo Island Forum (http://www.arimecibo.com/smf/index.php) and the Arimecibo 2.1 (http://www.arimecibo.com/smf_2_1/index.php) forum daily. Other than a spammer / scammer trying to register with a phony e-mail address, there has been no activity for months. Error log entries reveal that someone, or a bot, has been trying to register with phony e-mail addresses. Since they never get the activation e-mail, the accounts are never activated.

     Arimecibo Island Forum registration has been deactivated entirely. I may re-activate it later, but his remains to be seen.

C:-) C:-) C:-)