(bots#2) LJ support deny problem

[nympholept]

This post is not current - Livejournal are now suspending these journals regularly
More information: Cyrillic russians serial adding friend friending livejournal bot random auto spider
If you are experiencing auto-adding russian bots, please open a support request about it

Comments

I've written in as well.

[squirrelitude]

Here's what I wrote:

I've been getting friended by Russian users who I don't know. I don't care if I show up on their friends list, but it *does* generate email to me every time it happens. Here are the most recent users:

amabelle_bondur
josephina_early
ferdinande_deda
judmccuaig
priya_intemann
salis_sutter
stefan_tappende
olivie_osterhou

Several of these accounts have since been suspended. The others are all Cyrillic journals, and without exception have 180 or more "friends". One even has over 600.

I could certainly turn off email notification for friendings, but that means I won't find out about legit friendings. I can ban the offending users in the Admin Console (and I have), but that's closing the barn door after the horses have run out.

Please consider bogo-filtering serial friend-adders. That is, when an individual with over 150 friends adds another friend, no email notification is sent.

Re: I've written in as well.

[seph_hazard]

when an individual with over 150 friends adds another friend, no email notification is sent

Not sure this is a good way of handling it at all - I completely legitimately have well over 150 friends, and so do lots and lots of people on LJ.

Re: I've written in as well.

[nympholept]

I agree that is isn't a good idea.

Perhaps "when an individual with over 150 friends that have been added within the last minute adds another friend" :P

I've been hearing reports that some people are seeing the people adding them being suspended by the time they try to check their profiles.
This may be an indication that LJ is automatically suspending people who add 100+ users at the same time.

Of course, that doesn't fix the email problem, but i don't think an email notification is a big deal.

Re: I've written in as well.

[squirrelitude]

If you don't think email notification is a big deal, what was your original post about? :-P

But yeah, the velocity of friend acquisition is a good clue.

Another approach entirely: Don't send any notification whatsoever unless the friender checks a box saying "let the target know I've friended them". After all, I doubt the serial frienders are intending to spam the other users -- they just want to build up their flists.