Just wait.. the technology behind IBM's Watson will end up in the hands of 
spammers and then there'll be no stopping the spam ;-)

--- On Thu, 3/10/11, Dan Kohn <[email protected]> wrote:

> From: Dan Kohn <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Spam account creation, circumventing recaptcha
> To: "MediaWiki announcements and site admin list" 
> <[email protected]>
> Date: Thursday, March 10, 2011, 10:10 AM
> Sol, I'd like to confirm your
> analysis.  I switched from ReCaptcha to
> QuestyCaptcha with a custom question
> <http://www.pwsnotes.org/Special:RecentChanges?title=Special:UserLogin&type=signup&returnto=Special:RecentChanges>
> and have seen no further spam.
> 
> So, it looks like someone has programmed a
> MediaWiki/ConfirmEdit-focused spambot that can defeat
> SimpleCatcha
> (simple math problems) and -- shockingly --
> ReCaptcha.  But not that
> they're using human beings to do the spamming.  So,
> QuestyCaptcha, for
> now, still works well.
> --
> Dan Kohn <mailto:[email protected]>
> tel:+1-646-833-8291
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Sol Invictus <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> > I don't think that's the case; my logs show pretty
> much instant data
> > entry. They must have found some way to break the
> service itself. I
> > switched to Questy with some simple things like "type
> the word X" or
> > "sum(2,3)" and it seems to be blocking them all so
> far.
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 10:43 AM, Dan Kohn <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >> My www.PWSNotes.org MediaWiki site, which I've
> operated since 2004,
> >> has been overrun with spam in the last month.  I
> used Nuke to clean it
> >> up.  Unfortunately, neither ConfirmEdit with
> ReCaptcha nor
> >> SpamBlacklist is stopping the spammers.  I
> interpret this as meaning
> >> that real people are doing the spamming.  I just
> installed
> >> ConfirmAccount, which I expect should bring the
> spam to an end, at the
> >> unfortunate cost of making it harder for new
> people to contribute to
> >> our community.
> >>
> >> Bummer.
> >> --
> >> Dan Kohn <mailto:[email protected]>
> >> tel:+1-646-833-8291
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> MediaWiki-l mailing list
> >> [email protected]
> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
> >>
> >
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> >
> 
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