[Noisebridge-discuss] how to protect media wikies against spammers - in general

Tue Nov 26 08:36:21 UTC 2013

Hi Zach,
Thanks a lot for the post, I think that is the next step. My friend Christian had set up the media wiki for Food Hacking Base group when it was needed for free on his server, however now he is really busy with his project so alas we have to do by ourselves for now. I think that after the 30c3 when we come together and chat about that as a group we will see but I think that getting a VPS account of our own (Food Hacking Base) would be good idea. We have now more resources and more people on the deck so it should be quite easy. What is really important I think is to decide if just person has an access of multiple. By the principle, I'm for shared access even if it causes problems. My practical reason is that as less experienced person I can do things wrongly and it comes handy if someone can directly help. Also when I'm on the road or at events I just can not take care about it others who are not so busy may chip in than. So personally I would be for
 multiple people having access with full privileges.

What I'm bit worried about is the legality or the probability of switching us off ... It is not that we do illegal stuff by default but in these days you never know and I honestly do not have a clew what are other members of the group up to in their spare time and based on the fact that some of them are quite heavily involved in the Tor projects I rather do not ask). I've a domain registrar for my personal domain frantisekapfelbeck.org with French company gandi.net and up to now no problems so I wonder if choosing some "non American based" service would give us a better chances of not getting turned off  so easily, that was at least a hint which I got some time ago.

Many thanks for the info, it will come handy soon :-)

Sincerely,

Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck

biotechnologist&kvasir and hacker

http://www.frantisekapfelbeck.org

"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 5:03 PM, Zach Hanna <chezbut at gmail.com> wrote:

Frantisek,
I would suggest getting a VPS on DigitalOcean or Dreamhost. 
Then you can have full access.
If you need help let me know and maybe we can have a Google Hangout and talk about it. 
-Z

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Chris Egeland <chris at chrisegeland.com> wrote:

Frantisek,
>
>
>Unfortunately most of the proactive (before it happens) antispam measure require somehow modifying how MediaWiki presents it's registration or editing process so as to fool the spambots. Unfortunately, the only thing I can offer to someone without sysadmin level access to the server hosting the wiki (so one could edit the code and run SQL queries as needed) are reactive (after the fact) antispam tools. AutoWikiBrowser or Huggle could be of use, but the best way to handle wikispam is definitely to get the sysadmins on board and have them install the proper plugins to prevent it in the first place. 
>
>
>For reference, I used to manually delete about 25-50 wiki user pages per day and ban the associated accounts before properly setting up our wiki antispam measures. Now, I get maybe 3-5 that slip through per month. So, something that used to take me over an hour of my time per month now takes under 2 minutes. For reference, I submit this graph:  
>http://m.imgur.com/Q8kV8
>
>
>Regards,
>Chris Egeland
>SYN/HAK
>Sent from my iPhone
>
>On Nov 24, 2013, at 7:06, Frantisek Apfelbeck <algoldor at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>Hi Chris,
>>I will have questions, quite for sure :-) Many thanks for the help.
>>
>>I've been using wiki's for few years now but just as a user and not very educated one I would say. Now I'm at the point when I want to start my own server and I want to install and run media wiki there, plus email client so I can run my own account.
>>
>> That "Special: Nuke extension" looks sweet, alas I do not have the rights to install it I think :-(( From the things which you mentioned to decrease the number of spammers (like questions and answers etc.), can I do them without having access to the server by itself? I've lets say "all the rights" on the media wiki graphical interface. I'm educating myself slowly but there are many other projects which I've to now keep running.
>>
>>Once more many
 thanks,
>>
>>Sincerely,
>> 
>>Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck
>>
>>
>>
>>biotechnologist&kvasir and hacker
>>
>>
>>
>>http://www.frantisekapfelbeck.org
>>
>>
>>
>>"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>On Sunday, November 24, 2013 4:15 PM, Chris Egeland <chris at chrisegeland.com> wrote:
>> 
>>Frantisek,
>>
>>
>>Check out the Special:Nuke extension and also consider implementing recaptcha and site-specific registration questions. For example, the wiki that runs our website for SYN/HAK asks what city we are in (which is plastered all over our home page, so it's not a secret or anything).
>>
>>
>>Also, if you have thousands of edits to deal with, check out AutoWikiBrowser which can be useful if you know what you're doing.
>>
>>
>>If you have any questions about running a wiki, let me know. I manage most of the frontend stuff on our wiki and have been doing so for over a year
>>
>>
>>Chris Egeland
>>SYN/HAK
>>
>>Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>On Nov 23, 2013, at 22:04, Frantisek Apfelbeck <algoldor at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>Hi Lee and others,
>>>I've an another question on you. I've just cleaned most of our food hacking base wiki at least the pages which were not suppose to be there - finally learn how to delete them ending up with just active pages which we want to have on
>>>
>>>https://foodhackingbase.org/wiki/Special:AllPages
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>blocking up all recent users - spammers (up to 30 days) leaving just the "proper users"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>https://foodhackingbase.org/wiki/Special:ActiveUsers
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I've found that based on statistics we have 324 users
>>>
>>>
>>>https://foodhackingbase.org/wiki/Special:Statistics
>>>
>>>
>>>from which just five are suppose to be there, rest are spammers, all users can be found here
>>>
>>>
>>>https://foodhackingbase.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&offset=&limit=500
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Is there some simple way how to block all these spammers/users and also delete they account pages - I'm not sure how you call it, it doesn't show as a page by itself in the list of pages but it is "part of their account" and they have spamm links there too.
>>>
>>>
>>>I just do not want to click over all 319 users and block and delete the contributions one by one, having also click again on the already blocked ones. I'm wondering if there is some way like giving the five users special privileges and after that erasing whole "group of users" who do not have these privileges?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Many thanks for any help and info on the subject,
>>>
>>>
>>>Sincerely, 
>>>Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>biotechnologist&kvasir and hacker
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>http://www.frantisekapfelbeck.org
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>On Monday, November 18, 2013 12:42 PM, Lee Sonko <lee at lee.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>>Good luck. There are a couple ways you might get access to the file. As your friend. 
>>>
>>>
>>>Have fun with your own server. I was pleasantly surprised at how quick my "old slow" linux server ran. I just got tired of fighting off people breaking into it. I now have a $7/month virtual private server with Dreamhost. It could be faster, better, stronger etc... but it works pretty well.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 5:52 PM, Frantisek Apfelbeck <algoldor at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>Thanks Lee! 
>>>>Alas I've I think lots of privileges on the wiki itself (like admin etc.) but I'm quite sure that I do not have SSH access because it is running on one of the members servers. However I will ask and find out. Many thanks for the info now I know what I'm after :-)
>>>>
>>>>By the way in references to variety of previous conversations about these topics which raised I've decided to set up my first server, the machine is sitting on my table for last few weeks, now it is time maybe to check if it is functional to play with - nothing big just starting to experiment with something useful like email server etc. Machine is old, with 512 Mb of memory (Pentium 4) but with some basic version of Ubuntu for servers it may do slowly what I'm after.
>>>>
>>>>Many thanks for
 help,
>>>>\
>>>>Sincerely,
>>>>
>>>> 
>>>>Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>biotechnologist&kvasir and hacker
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>http://www.frantisekapfelbeck.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>On Monday, November 18, 2013 8:40 AM, Lee Sonko <lee at lee.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>Seth, you are correct! I am so embarrassed! Thanks for the correction.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 3:38 PM, Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Lee Sonko writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> As an example, on my server, I have a wiki in the "k" directory. So the
>>>>>> LocalSettings file it is located in  ~\lee.org\k\   .
>>>>>
>>>>>Forward slashes: ~/lee.org/k/
>>>>>
>>>>>--
>>>>>Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org>      |  No haiku patents
>>>>>     http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/        |  means I've no incentive to
>>>>>  FD9A6AA28193A9F03D4BF4ADC11B36DC9C7DD150  |        -- Don Marti
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
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