Well they say you're somebody when your site gets hacked. I guess someone thinks we're important enough to continually try to spam our boards. I've had to implement a few security measures to protect against this so we don't get unwanted crap all over the place.
First, new registrations have to be approved by a board Admin. I know it's inconvenient, but for now it lets us see if someone registering is a legitimate user, or a bot. If it's an obvious bot we'll block it, but if it looks like it's a legit person we'll give the benefit of the doubt. I check the new registraitons list once a day myself, so nobody should get lost in the shuffle.
Second, Guests can no longer post replies except on the Bug Reports subforum of the Generations Arena forum. I removed the ability to reply to news posts because the bots are getting increasingly sophisticated and are trying to embed malicious, self-triggering stuff into anonymous posts. We don't want anyone's system compromised by stumbling across something nasty, so limiting anonymous posts makes sense. I know some people don't want to take the time to register or may feel uncomfortable with registering on a message board, which is why we're leaving the Bug Report area open. Anyone should be able to report a bug.
HTML code is now disabled on the bug reports forum. If you need to link to something, use IBF code or just paste the hyperlink. Members can still use HTML code on other forums.
If this causes any inconvenience then we apoligize. We take the security of our members very seriously. We want this to be a happy place for all our members, but also a safe place.
|
