New member registration disabled for now

[TheWendybird]

Still don't get why spamming and bots online are still around...is that even legal anymore? If it is...WHY? *sighs*

[SunSpire]

Spamming and automated mass-distribution of messages (whether it is by email or on public boards, sites etc.) is indeed against the law in most countries. And there are harsh penalties for those who get caught spamming. But that is exactly where the problem lies, it is nearly impossible to track down the one person who initiated the attack in the first place. Many attacks are carried out by purpose-built bots or from computers of innocent users who are totally unaware of the attack. Not even big sites such as facebook are safe from spammers.

The worrying part is that the internet has seen a notable increase of spam and junk mail in recent years. I get that stuff in my inbox daily, and my address isn't even posted anywhere on the net. Filters and black/whitelists will only work to a certain degree, as setting them too strict will also filter out the messages you actually want. And the same problem we're facing with the registration process on the boards now, the bots have advanced to a level where introducing harder security questions will negatively affect new users, but hardly the bots .. they'll still find a way.

[SunSpire]

I've done some changes with the registration process, it is now enabled again for the time being (for testing). Please keep an eye out for suspicious posts over the next few weeks!

[Clinozoisite]

Hopefully we won't be inundated with spam bots any longer!