Toughening Up the Signup Procedure

Carol Rose

Cheat Sheets For Writing Body Language

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AgentPete

AgentPete

Capo Famiglia
Guardian
Full Member
May 19, 2014
London UK
Our redoubtable bot-hunter, otherwise known as Alistair, is having an increasingly hard time keeping the Colony spam-free.

What’s happening is quite interesting in a internet-sociology sort of way. It’s no longer automated bots that sign up as members. Apparently, one of the biggest growth industries in the Philippines and similar countries is creating fake online personae... Fbook, Twitter, etc. You can make many times the average wage doing this all day long.

These profiles are then sold on to third parties who use them for their own nefarious purposes.

It’s quite clear to me that humans are creating profiles here, complete with authenticated email addresses, and then turning them over to spam merchants. Being human, they can easily defeat the usual Captcha “1+3=” question.

What I therefore propose to do is to have a good range of questions that only people who are genuinely interested in writing and writers could possibly answer.

For example... what was Shakespeare’s first name?

(That may be a bit on the easy side, but you see where I’m headed).

So my fellow Litopians... over to you! You are absolutely the best people to create these Q&As, and to set the correct difficultly threshold.

I’ll need a good stock of questions – they are randomly selected at signup – so please do post as many as you can here... thanks in advance!
 
The problem is how much effort these fake persona mills will go to. If you ask the likes of:
  • How many lines in a sonnet?
  • How many syllables in the middle line of a haiku?
  • Who wrote The Wasp Factory?
  • What was the author of Catcher in the Rye's first name?
... my suspicion is that all of these would be immediately answered by pasting the question into Google.

So ideally you would want slightly devious questions like this:
  • Which word has the wrong spelling in this sentence: 'My sister and I where only young when my father died.'
Which have the double advantage of not requiring quiz-type general knowledge, and being easy to generate a whole string of 'em, e.g.
  • Which word has the wrong spelling in this sentence: 'In my opinion their is only one great rock group.'
  • Which word should have a comma in front of it in this sentence: 'I like bacon which is unusual in a vegan.'
  • Which word splits the infinitive in this sentence: 'To boldly go where no real person test has ever gone before.'
 
Brian Clegg said:
The problem is how much effort these fake persona mills will go to. If you ask the likes of:
  • How many lines in a sonnet?
  • How many syllables in the middle line of a haiku?
  • Who wrote The Wasp Factory?
  • What was the author of Catcher in the Rye's first name?
... my suspicion is that all of these would be immediately answered by pasting the question into Google.

So ideally you would want slightly devious questions like this:
  • Which word has the wrong spelling in this sentence: 'My sister and I where only young when my father died.'
Which have the double advantage of not requiring quiz-type general knowledge, and being easy to generate a whole string of 'em, e.g.
  • Which word has the wrong spelling in this sentence: 'In my opinion their is only one great rock group.'
  • Which word should have a comma in front of it in this sentence: 'I like bacon which is unusual in a vegan.'
  • Which word splits the infinitive in this sentence: 'To boldly go where no real person test has ever gone before.'
Click to expand...

I agree that Google will be able to answer most, but I caution about using too complex questions. Not all writers are grammar wizards. Do we turn away a writer because they don't know what an apositive is? (That would be something even I'd have to Google.)
 
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Brian's approach makes sense to me. Of course, as Nicole says, you don't want to make the questions too techno-grammatical either, because, apart from anything else, not all authors will know the answers, 'coz that's not really what writing is all about.

How about giving applicants a simple crossword to do? In fact, I'm serious; you only need to have two or three clues, on writerly subjects, and you make the answers minimally cryptic. That should set the inconvenience level too high for spammers, as well as Google-proofing it, while still leaving the application process easy enough for people who want to make a living from words.
 
I like Brian's idea as well. I think a crossword would give Pete a problem to organise technically speaking? And yes there were another 2 spammers last night, and they seem to follow a pattern of coming here about the same night each night/day, i.e. about 6 pm PST, or 2 am GMT.
 
How about making the application essay-based?

I would have had to Google most of that stuff, and I have no idea where the infinitive is split. But I can write the hell out of an essay, and you will know that I am a serious writer. A spam merchant can probably spot a misspelling, but how many times did the entire class groan at a 500-word requirement, and you called out, "but we can go above that, right?"

I will admit it — I even had to think for a second, "what the hell was William Shakespeare's first... oh, wait."
 
Well I don't really know about infinitive split, but it was easy to work out. One word just doesn't fit "test" in this case. And frankly I'm a dumby on English ;)
 
And it wouldn't necessarily mean tomes of reading for you, Alistair. If ten people apply, you don't have 5,000 words to read — you'll know eight of them are bots ten words in; that's 1,080 words, and maybe an hour or two's occupation.

We need an efficient method, as much as an effective one.
 
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Brian Clegg said:
The problem is how much effort these fake persona mills will go to. If you ask the likes of:
  • How many lines in a sonnet?
  • How many syllables in the middle line of a haiku?
  • Who wrote The Wasp Factory?
  • What was the author of Catcher in the Rye's first name?
... my suspicion is that all of these would be immediately answered by pasting the question into Google.

So ideally you would want slightly devious questions like this:
  • Which word has the wrong spelling in this sentence: 'My sister and I where only young when my father died.'
Which have the double advantage of not requiring quiz-type general knowledge, and being easy to generate a whole string of 'em, e.g.
  • Which word has the wrong spelling in this sentence: 'In my opinion their is only one great rock group.'
  • Which word should have a comma in front of it in this sentence: 'I like bacon which is unusual in a vegan.'
  • Which word splits the infinitive in this sentence: 'To boldly go where no real person test has ever gone before.'
Click to expand...
I like this idea, HOWEVER for genuine avid writers that are say dyslexic, this could cause an issue. Though there wouldn't be many I imagine. If you are a dyslexic writer then you have to have some drive because it's damn hard work!
 
Apparently, our friends in the Philippines create about 100 fake identities a day. That doesn't leave much time to research finicky captchas as above,i.e. Set the threshold high enough and they'll move on.
 
I like Jason Byrne's idea of an essay.

Unfortunately, essay's can be googled as well.

It seems to me that what these spammers don't want to do is spend time. Answering questions doesn't take time. Copying and pasting an essay doesn't take time. The only thing that takes time, is time. LOL

I would suggest holding posts for new people. Pick a number of posts, or a number of days - whatever. You'll be able to see pretty quickly who is a spammer and who isn't.
 
Other Google-proof options:

  1. To which writing technique was Chekhov referring when he said: "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass"?
  2. What is the term given to a feather used as a pen (rhymes with 'kill')?
  3. Who do you consider to be the greatest living author? [No right answer, but it does require a valid name - and you could chuck out anyone who answers 'Dan Brown, EL James, or the bloke who wrote Moon People].

All easy but require a moment's thought and physical typing so well beyond your average bot or time-pressed Manila-spammer.
 
Bernard Stacey said:
Other Google-proof options:

  1. To which writing technique was Chekhov referring when he said: "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass"?
  2. What is the term given to a feather used as a pen (rhymes with 'kill')?
  3. Who do you consider to be the greatest living author? [No right answer, but it does require a valid name - and you could chuck out anyone who answers 'Dan Brown, EL James, or the bloke who wrote Moon People].

All easy but require a moment's thought and physical typing so well beyond your average bot or time-pressed Manila-spammer.
Click to expand...
Good suggestions, Bernard! In any event, you run the risk of real people not 'getting' it, and Spam Replicants being able to dig up the answer. There is literally nothing of which we can contrive that they could not possibly evade — because they are people. We're just talking about adding lines of defense, to make it easier on dear Alistair, not airtight.

Although I've always wanted a security clearance...
 
So if it's time and not the answers that will keep human spammers away, how about we do questions as Brian has suggested, and make folks answer more than one? Make them easy, so those of us who got degrees in science instead of English can answer, but make it take time to complete.
 
Well I think Amber has a good idea for a second line of defense! (Pens at fifty paces?). Simply preventing them from posting for 24 hours may (may?) put them off. Clearly they join and post immediately, as I've seen posts 1-6 minutes old, and they were still online! (over-use of the exclamation mark I know...)
 
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Carol Rose

Cheat Sheets For Writing Body Language

  • Carol Rose
  • Replies: 12
Boopadoo

So, what did I miss?

  • Boopadoo
  • Replies: 23
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