Closing registrations in Fedia.io due to spammers

Until I implement a better system to screen out spammers, I will be closing registrations on Fedia.io. That’s not what I want - I’d like for it to be available for legitimate accounts, but the spam is off the hook.

Anyone seeing this can send me an email (jerry@infosec.exchange) and I’ll get an account created for you in the mean time.

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

I know it's not ideal, but I fully understand the whole situation. Let's focus on making Mbin better for the existing users who are now experiencing CSRF or log-out problems. Hopefully after that, we can focus on improving anti-spam (since hcaptcha is not preventing any spam accounts for some unknown reason).

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Maybe even considering additional an optional question? With only 1 correct answer. Or maybe even enforce 2FA.. I dunno.. But spam is getting out of control. Coincidence due to the rise of LLMs? Who knows. But anti-spam like hCaptcha, even set to "difficult" doesn't seem to cut it anymore...

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

What works for me on both mastodon and Lemmy is a free text question: why do you want to join?

The user enters whatever they like and it goes into a moderation queue. Both lemmy and mastodon send me an email when a new account is ready to review.

I read the response and choose to whether to approve their account. At the moment, spammers are really bad at answering the “why do you want to join” questions.

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Makes sense as well.

DarkThoughts,

The main thing I experience since the CDN update is that voting often ends up in an error page, similar to how adding comments sometimes directs you to a secondary page (luckily with the comment intact). Going back and trying to vote again may or may not work.

Blaze,
@Blaze@feddit.org avatar

This issue is discussed here: https://fedia.io/m/fedia/t/1101127

DarkThoughts,

I did not have that 3 weeks ago though, and they're not 500s - at least they're not displayed as that. I get pages like this one: https://fedia.io/ecv/7319083/-1

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

There were lots of changes around the same time. I removed fedia.io from the CDN a few days ago though didn't announce it, yet the errors continue.

msdropbear42,

@jerry

Being a slow peep, & also not previously paying any attention to / til last week, i then "discovered" Fedia.io [having no idea at all it was another of your babies]. As i read thru the various admin info for users pages, i thought "hey, this all seems quite familiar, has someone copied Jerry's words from `infosec.exchange'?" Then, soon after, i realised my ignorance. I've not yet tried to sign up coz i still dunno if i "need" it, alongside / instead of my existing & Masto accounts, but clearly based on your post here, if i do later decide to try it, i'll need to remember this new status.

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

Howdy! Mbin (and lemmy) are very different things. It’s sort of like the difference between Twitter and Reddit. You can sort of interact back and forth, but to get the full experience, you have to either be on a lemmy or mbin (or piefed) instance.

msdropbear42,

@jerry Fair enough. Any "decision" i end up making on this is a low-priority thing, but from my initial looking at your instance the other night, i suspect i'm prolly leaning towards not bothering... not as any slight against your fine work, but simply coz i'm not sure that i like the UI & its tools [compared to Friendica & even Masto]. Also, given that as a lot of my posts, & fav interlocutors' posts, regard , my initial keyword search for that there were rather underwhelming.

DarkThoughts,

You don't search for hashtags on a content aggregator like this (Lemmy itself didn't even support hashtags until very recently), but for communities / magazines that fit your needs that you subscribe to for a more personalized feed (I'd use external search tools to find communities though, as mbin's magazine search can only find what's already federated) - or just browse /all and let whatever is federated hit you.

Sendpicsofsandwiches,
@Sendpicsofsandwiches@sh.itjust.works avatar

Spammers room everything

Blaze,
@Blaze@feddit.org avatar

Thank you for preventing spam!

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