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What the F+*+ are CAPTCHAs?
That little trick where they show you something easy for a human to do but hard for a computer. For example, they show you a low quality picture of a set of letters and numbers and ask you to retype the letters and numbers. Optical Character Recognition still isn't good enough to do that. Or they show you an array of sixteen pictures and ask you to click on the ones that are pictures of cats -- image processing isn't that good yet.
It's a very effective way of keeping bots out of a web forum, since it forces you to prove you're a human.
Unfortunately, the spammers appear to be humans, so it wouldn't do any good.
What the F@$& are CAPTCHAs?Image files with difficult-to-OCR sequences of letters and numbers. You type in the sequence to prove that you're a real person, since they're (supposedly) not easily machine readable.
My understanding, unfortunately, is that the OCR engines are now better at reading those damned images than I am. Google suggests that the machines are now 99.8% accurate, and I know I'm not.
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In all honesty, the spam is an annoyance, but it does not really detract from using the vast majority of the Paizo site.
It's also a nonissue during US normal business hours, and at such other times as a mod is around. If you're in Europe or on the US East Coast or Midwest, it's effing ugly, though--I'm in the Chicago area, and before 930 or 10 local the Messageboards list on the left is pretty much clotted up with spam.
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Drive away some of the paying customers while doing literally nothing to prevent spam? Yeah, that's a great idea! <rolleyes>
Orfamay Quest, just curious. Why are you being so derisive, hostile and adversarial about this?
We're all in this together, and we all just want 'our' site to not be under attack by these spammers. Folks have varying degrees of understanding when it comes to matters like this. People are just trying to offer ideas to make the site better and keep these pieces of #$#$! away.
It seems like you might have a higher level of understanding on this kind of stuff than many other folks. Maybe instead of snarky comments and condescending <eyerolls> that don't actually help, you might try to be a little more civil and even offer up some ideas that might help the situation.
Just a thought ...
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Orfamay Quest, just curious. Why are you being so derisive, hostile and adversarial about this?
Drive away some of the paying customers while doing literally nothing to prevent spam? Yeah, that's a great idea! <rolleyes>
As the T-shirt puts it, "I'd be less Grumpy if you were less Dopey."
The opening post on this thread suggested CAPTCHA technology. He was answered in the second post explaining that it wouldn't work. The IT manager for Paizo chimed in on ninth post of this thread to explain that CAPTCHA wouldn't work.
Anyone still suggesting CAPTCHA-based technology at this point is making a contribution to this thread of negative value.
Imagine the following conversation with your doctor.
* "I'm afraid you've caught a serious viral infection."
* "Well, is there something you can do?"
* "Yes, but the drugs are very expensive."
* "Well, why don't you just use penicillin?"
* "Penicillin is an antibiotic, not an anti-viral."
* "Yes, but why don't you use amoxicillin?"
* "That's an antibiotic, not an anti-viral."
* "How about norfloxacin?"
* "That's also an antibiotic, not an anti-viral."
* "How about tetracycline?"
* "That's not an anti-viral, either."
* "Well, how about penicillin?"
It seems like you might have a higher level of understanding on this kind of stuff than many other folks. Maybe instead of snarky comments and condescending <eyerolls> that don't actually help, you might try to be a little more civil and even offer up some ideas that might help the situation.
I have, both on various threads, and privately. The people at Paizo are (justifiably) playing this very close to their vests, and I'm not going to tell you what (I think) they're really doing. But, for what it's worth, I concur with their decision not to use antibacterial agents to treat a viral infection.
It's also a nonissue during US normal business hours, and at such other times as a mod is around. If you're in Europe or on the US East Coast or Midwest, it's effing ugly, though--I'm in the Chicago area, and before 930 or 10 local the Messageboards list on the left is pretty much clotted up with spam.In all honesty, the spam is an annoyance, but it does not really detract from using the vast majority of the Paizo site.
I just counted. The first 181 posts in Paizo General Discussion are spam. It is not worth looking in that forum until those posts are gone. Right now it's 3.42 pm where I am, and I don't expect anyone in Paizo to start slamming the spam (that sounds like a euphemism) for at least another hour. In the meantime that sub forum is completely unusable.
more sarcasmOk, commander sarcasm. You're clearly too smart for me. (Hint: That last bit was sarcasm).
That's Admiral sarcasm to you, and don't forget it.
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It's also a nonissue during US normal business hours, and at such other times as a mod is around. If you're in Europe or on the US East Coast or Midwest, it's effing ugly, though--I'm in the Chicago area, and before 930 or 10 local the Messageboards list on the left is pretty much clotted up with spam.In all honesty, the spam is an annoyance, but it does not really detract from using the vast majority of the Paizo site.
Actually, I am in France, so I saw the same mess too.
Still, it was only a mostly minor annoyance to me. Its main effect was to shatter most of my courage at flagging all those posts :-/
EDIT - something seems to be happening : they appear then disappear real quickly from that small window of new posts on the left :-)
EDIT - something seems to be happening : they appear then disappear real quickly from that small window of new posts on the left :-)
Someone just got to their desk in Seattle, I think.
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It's also a nonissue during US normal business hours, and at such other times as a mod is around. If you're in Europe or on the US East Coast or Midwest, it's effing ugly, though--I'm in the Chicago area, and before 930 or 10 local the Messageboards list on the left is pretty much clotted up with spam.In all honesty, the spam is an annoyance, but it does not really detract from using the vast majority of the Paizo site.
Actually, I am in France, so I saw the same mess too.
Still, it was only a mostly minor annoyance to me. Its main effect was to shatter most of my courage at flagging all those posts :-/
EDIT - something seems to be happening : they appear then disappear real quickly from that small window of new posts on the left :-)
The Paizo folks are at work now.
And I agree re the scale of this; I long ago reached the point where I'd flag only one post from each gibberish account, and now I flag a few here and there--I figure that the problem is obvious, and as soon as someone logs in at Redmond they're going to take a flamethrower to the General Discussion forum. I'll flag the leftovers, if there are any.
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As the T-shirt puts it, "I'd be less Grumpy if you were less Dopey."
The opening post on this thread suggested CAPTCHA technology. He was answered in the second post explaining that it wouldn't work. The IT manager for Paizo chimed in on ninth post of this thread to explain that CAPTCHA wouldn't work.
Anyone still suggesting CAPTCHA-based technology at this point is making a contribution to this thread of negative value.
Imagine the following conversation with your doctor.
* "I'm afraid you've caught a serious viral infection."
* "Well, is there something you can do?"
* "Yes, but the drugs are very expensive."
* "Well, why don't you just use penicillin?"
* "Penicillin is an antibiotic, not an anti-viral."
* "Yes, but why don't you use amoxicillin?"
* "That's an antibiotic, not an anti-viral."
* "How about norfloxacin?"
* "That's also an antibiotic, not an anti-viral."
* "How about tetracycline?"
* "That's not an anti-viral, either."
* "Well, how about penicillin?"
Except that in this scenario, I'm the doctor. As it happens, I have a master's degree in information management and bachelor's in information technology, both from, *gasp*, an actual brick'n'mortar research university. So while I'm admittedly NOT presently employed as an web developer, I'm at least as qualified as -- no offense -- Random Internet Poster #2340934 to comment on the situation.
But appeals to authority aside, you might consider the possibility that everyone who isn't you isn't necessarily a moron. Or not; it's up to you. Either way, the snark is not helpful.
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Yes! They're vanishing as and before I can flag them!
Customer Service Manager
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We have a significant amount of customers who only purchase occasionally from us, or sometimes just once for a gift or a paizo.com exclusive they can't get at a FLGS. Our community and customer base is much, much larger than the number of people that post on paizo.com and as Gary said earlier, implementing any number of things that makes account creation or log-in (which is already too much of a barrier for some folks) harder is something we need to be extremely cautious about. I'm reminded of this every Gen Con when a large chunk of the people visiting our booth have never visited or heard of paizo.com.
Senior Software Developer
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There are no current plans to run posting through a CAPTCHA. If we ever do a CAPTCHA it would be one that requires knowledge of Paizo's products or the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game ruleset. No point in annoying real humans with something that doesn't actually prevent spam.
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What the F@$& are CAPTCHAs?Image files with difficult-to-OCR sequences of letters and numbers. You type in the sequence to prove that you're a real person, since they're (supposedly) not easily machine readable.
ETA: Ninja'd!
On a side note, I read this webcomic in which the characters use a captcha-based inventory technology. To duplicate an item or mix it with another item, you simply read the captcha code for an item and feed the code into a machine.
Unfortunately, the captcha codes for some items are so complex that they cannot be read with the human eye, but a laser eye robot with artificial intelligence can read the captcha for you.
It is, of course, deliberately ironic.
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I just wanted to know what CAPTCHAs were, I agree with Sara, it's also on us, now who's up for some Korean Barbeque, gambling and maybe swing by the KIA dealership to test drive some cars.
It's a good thing I'm highly resistant to viral marketing :-)
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Well I can't speak for anyone else CAPTCHA never really bothered me. I can see how it would however. Maybe require all new forum accounts to require one to submit a video of them singing one of the goblin songs from we be goblins?
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Except that in this scenario, I'm the doctor. As it happens, I have a master's degree in information management and bachelor's in information technology, both from, *gasp*, an actual brick'n'mortar research university.
As long as we're out-degree-ing each other, I'm a professional web developer with a degree in computer science and PhD in Computer Information Systems from a top-tier research university.
As much as he's starting to sound trollish (and he's probably just really frustrated with people with their fingers in their ears), Orfamay Quest is correct. Adding CAPTHCA to the forum will do little observable good, and almost certainly observable harm.
1. As "Orfamay Quest" pointed out, these are humans posting, not bots, so CAPTCHA is irrelevant.
2. As others pointed out, most CAPTCHA types have been solved with a high degree of accuracy. That doesn't really matter, because even with a low degree of success, an automated program can retry quickly enough that its effective success rate is still pretty high. In other words, CAPTCHAs are mostly machine solvable anyway, so even if the perpetrators here *were* bots (and they're arguably not), CAPTCHA would likely only discomfit them temporarily until they prepped an automated solution (which is easy to do).
3. Several years ago researchers identified rings of CAPTCHA-breakers that instead of trying to automate solving would instead offload it to another site. For example, to solve Site A CAPTCHA, Evil Guy Z would reproduce it on Site B (a high traffic pr0n site, for example) and use the human-generated solutions to crack Site A. Yet another (of many) ways to circumvent CAPTCHA.
The long and short of all of this is CAPTCHAs take time to implement (and I'd rather have that time go toward more important features), provide negligible benefit, but measurable harm.
CAPTCHAs can work on low traffic sites that use common platforms (WordPress, for example, because spammers target *all* WP sites, but are unlikely to target *your* WP site), but against a targeted attack (which this seems to be), they wouldn't be helpful.
That is fascinating. Thanks for sharing!
To be honest there's one brand of captcha that I kind of like, because it uses words from scanned books (so it's actually readable), and by doing the captchas allegedly you help scanned books be converted to text. Also sometimes the captchas form funny phrases.
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Except that in this scenario, I'm the doctor. As it happens, I have a master's degree in information management and bachelor's in information technology, both from, *gasp*, an actual brick'n'mortar research university.
As long as we're out-degree-ing each other, I'm a professional web developer with a degree in computer science and PhD in Computer Information Systems from a top-tier research university.
As much as he's starting to sound trollish (and he's probably just really frustrated with people with their fingers in their ears), Orfamay Quest is correct. Adding CAPTHCA to the forum will do little observable good, and almost certainly observable harm.
1. As "Orfamay Quest" pointed out, these are humans posting, not bots, so CAPTCHA is irrelevant.
2. As others pointed out, most CAPTCHA types have been solved with a high degree of accuracy. That doesn't really matter, because even with a low degree of success, an automated program can retry quickly enough that its effective success rate is still pretty high. In other words, CAPTCHAs are mostly machine solvable anyway, so even if the perpetrators here *were* bots (and they're arguably not), CAPTCHA would likely only discomfit them temporarily until they prepped an automated solution (which is easy to do).
3. Several years ago researchers identified rings of CAPTCHA-breakers that instead of trying to automate solving would instead offload it to another site. For example, to solve Site A CAPTCHA, Evil Guy Z would reproduce it on Site B (a high traffic pr0n site, for example) and use the human-generated solutions to crack Site A. Yet another (of many) ways to circumvent CAPTCHA.The long and short of all of this is CAPTCHAs take time to implement (and I'd rather have that time go toward more important features), provide negligible benefit, but measurable harm.
CAPTCHAs can work on low traffic sites that use common platforms (WordPress, for example,...
TomG:
I stand humbled before your superior degree-fu. It seems you are actually the doctor. ;)
However, my original suggestion was actually to apply a mix of techniques, including CAPTCHAs, user registration confirmation, etc., in an attempt to both combat bots and inconvenience human spammers. Doubtless custom, domain-specific development would also play a role.
I appreciate that CAPTCHAs aren't a silver bullet, but I'm sure you are aware, one of the basic principles of computer security is that you can't make a system impregnable; rather, you can make it an unattractive target, and you can try to slow determined attackers long enough for humans to notice and intervene. CAPTCHAs and user registration confirmation in particular struck me as an easy-to-implement start of a comprehensive strategy.
My original suggestion was also born of frustration, as this isn't a new problem. Nor is it clear to me why it isn't been treated as a higher priority. Personally, I would have long since tried these things (and more), especially given the importance of this site to Paizo's revenue.
Finally, while I personally find them annoying, no CAPTCHA has ever stopped me from signing up for a site I cared about, so I don't really buy the argument that they'd harm the community. But I'm prepared to accept the idea that I'm atypical in that respect.
TLDR: A reasoned argument stating the weaknesses of CAPTCHAs -- but also acknowledging that that hadn't been my only suggestion -- would have been treated as such. However, "LOL UR STUPID CATCHAS ROFL N00B!"? Not so much.
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We have a significant amount of customers who only purchase occasionally from us, or sometimes just once for a gift or a paizo.com exclusive they can't get at a FLGS. Our community and customer base is much, much larger than the number of people that post on paizo.com and as Gary said earlier, implementing any number of things that makes account creation or log-in (which is already too much of a barrier for some folks) harder is something we need to be extremely cautious about. I'm reminded of this every Gen Con when a large chunk of the people visiting our booth have never visited or heard of paizo.com.
My only comment here, other than being glad that you guys are working on it, is that in 2015 I find it incredulous that account creation and/or logging in is a barrier for some users. Everything I do on the internet in some way requires you to do this sort of thing. In this day and age, that's like saying that tying your shoes is too much effort -- but then, we wouldn't have velcro shoes I guess.
Not saying it isn't true, mind you, just amazed where the bar is.
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Answers to similar questions (and many others too) were provided in the Spamwar thread in this part of the messageboards ;-)Does anyone know why they're doing it?
I don't see the benefit.
So, I read five pages. And used the search function when I got really bored.
Is it really just that this site has a link to the words 'game' and 'gaming'? And they're promoting gambling sites?
That's a long thread...
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What the F@$& are CAPTCHAs?Image files with difficult-to-OCR sequences of letters and numbers. You type in the sequence to prove that you're a real person, since they're (supposedly) not easily machine readable.
ETA: Ninja'd!
On a side note, I read this webcomic in which the characters use a captcha-based inventory technology. To duplicate an item or mix it with another item, you simply read the captcha code for an item and feed the code into a machine.
Unfortunately, the captcha codes for some items are so complex that they cannot be read with the human eye, but a laser eye robot with artificial intelligence can read the captcha for you.
It is, of course, deliberately ironic.
Could the Batterwitch be behind all this?
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I kind of enjoy the new CAPTCHAs where you have to pick out the photos that have food or signposts in them. It's almost like a game!
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We have a significant amount of customers who only purchase occasionally from us, or sometimes just once for a gift or a paizo.com exclusive they can't get at a FLGS. Our community and customer base is much, much larger than the number of people that post on paizo.com and as Gary said earlier, implementing any number of things that makes account creation or log-in (which is already too much of a barrier for some folks) harder is something we need to be extremely cautious about. I'm reminded of this every Gen Con when a large chunk of the people visiting our booth have never visited or heard of paizo.com.My only comment here, other than being glad that you guys are working on it, is that in 2015 I find it incredulous that account creation and/or logging in is a barrier for some users. Everything I do on the internet in some way requires you to do this sort of thing. In this day and age, that's like saying that tying your shoes is too much effort -- but then, we wouldn't have velcro shoes I guess.
Not saying it isn't true, mind you, just amazed where the bar is.
I have an anxiety disorder and I get anxiety over the most random and asinine things. For example, there is a website I haven't used in months because their login system doesn't work with password managers and the idea of having to actually wrangle with it irrationally distresses me and keeps me away. I actually use a password manager specifically because that removes some of the hurdles in account creation and login for me. I have trouble logging into things outside my browser (eg, downloading apps to the iphone, etc) for the same reason that it's not handled by my password manager.
I also tend to avoid making new accounts because when I do that, I feel like I am creating clutter, and I'm always anxious about being surrounded by clutter and having to dig into said clutter to find something I need. (both physically and in a more abstract space, like digital clutter)
So yeah, if people find account creation and logging in to be a barrier, I can empathize.
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Answers to similar questions (and many others too) were provided in the Spamwar thread in this part of the messageboards ;-)Does anyone know why they're doing it?
I don't see the benefit.
So, I read five pages. And used the search function when I got really bored.
Is it really just that this site has a link to the words 'game' and 'gaming'? And they're promoting gambling sites?
That's a long thread...
AIUI, it's that they want to run up their ranking on various search engines; although most of what I've seen has been gambling-related, it's not exclusively that. I see this sort of thing on other websites, though not to anywhere near the extent of this particular infestation.
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Could the Batterwitch be behind all this?What the F@$& are CAPTCHAs?Image files with difficult-to-OCR sequences of letters and numbers. You type in the sequence to prove that you're a real person, since they're (supposedly) not easily machine readable.
ETA: Ninja'd!
On a side note, I read this webcomic in which the characters use a captcha-based inventory technology. To duplicate an item or mix it with another item, you simply read the captcha code for an item and feed the code into a machine.
Unfortunately, the captcha codes for some items are so complex that they cannot be read with the human eye, but a laser eye robot with artificial intelligence can read the captcha for you.
It is, of course, deliberately ironic.
The heinous batterwitch has her gnarled claws in everything.
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I have an anxiety disorder and I get anxiety over the most random and asinine things. For example, there is a website I haven't used in months because their login system doesn't work with password managers and the idea of having to actually wrangle with it irrationally distresses me and keeps me away. I actually use a password manager specifically because that removes some of the hurdles in account creation and login for me. I have trouble logging into things outside my browser (eg, downloading apps to the iphone, etc) for the same reason that it's not handled by my password manager.
I also tend to avoid making new accounts because when I do that, I feel like I am creating clutter, and I'm always anxious about being surrounded by clutter and having to dig into said clutter to find something I need. (both physically and in a more abstract space, like digital clutter)
So yeah, if people find account creation and logging in to be a barrier, I can empathize.
Having issues with anxiety myself, I can understand how this could be an issue for you and why changing it up could be a problem.
I probably have already seen this suggested somewhere, but have we considered turning off non-English characters in thread titles? It probably won't help, but it might slow them down long enough to get some of the other precautions in place?
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My original suggestion was also born of frustration, as this isn't a new problem. Nor is it clear to me why it isn't been treated as a higher priority. Personally, I would have long since tried these things (and more), especially given the importance of this site to Paizo's revenue.
I hear you on this one. There are certainly several things they could do to layer protection better.
But really, the frequency of down servers (and eaten posts) here is a bigger annoyance to me. It was a problem 10 years ago (and frustrating enough then that I wandered away), and it's a problem still.
IMNSHO, spam is just one of several complaints I have about Paizo's technological capability. It unfortunately does not seem to be a focus for them.
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We have a significant amount of customers who only purchase occasionally from us, or sometimes just once for a gift or a paizo.com exclusive they can't get at a FLGS. Our community and customer base is much, much larger than the number of people that post on paizo.com and as Gary said earlier, implementing any number of things that makes account creation or log-in (which is already too much of a barrier for some folks) harder is something we need to be extremely cautious about. I'm reminded of this every Gen Con when a large chunk of the people visiting our booth have never visited or heard of paizo.com.My only comment here, other than being glad that you guys are working on it, is that in 2015 I find it incredulous that account creation and/or logging in is a barrier for some users. Everything I do on the internet in some way requires you to do this sort of thing. In this day and age, that's like saying that tying your shoes is too much effort -- but then, we wouldn't have velcro shoes I guess.
Not saying it isn't true, mind you, just amazed where the bar is.
I have found requiring account creation to be personally off-putting at times.
Generally it is related to when I desire to make a single purchase from a site I know with near certainty I will never return to. Either the item is a one-time throw away for myself or perhaps a gift for a friend who has an interest I do not share. When I click through the checkout process I get annoyed (often to the point of aborting my purchase) if an account is required.
This is even more of an issue with industry sites that want to guard their price structure to keep you from shopping. When I have to create an account just to get to "request a quote" I know instantly that I will not be doing business with that company. I just wont subject myself to that level of punishment in order to give someone money. You should make it easy for me to give you money. If giving you money is like pulling teeth then what can I expect when it comes time to fulfill your end of the bargain? What if I need product support 2 years down the line? This is a courtship and you are being interviewed. Don't give me a reason to walk away.
Anyhoo, I think that is the type of customer the paizo CS folks are talking about when they are worried an extra hoop might be the one that causes a sale to walk away instead of proceed.
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I have an anxiety disorder and I get anxiety over the most random and asinine things. For example, there is a website I haven't used in months because their login system doesn't work with password managers and the idea of having to actually wrangle with it irrationally distresses me and keeps me away. I actually use a password manager specifically because that removes some of the hurdles in account creation and login for me. I have trouble logging into things outside my browser (eg, downloading apps to the iphone, etc) for the same reason that it's not handled by my password manager.
I also tend to avoid making new accounts because when I do that, I feel like I am creating clutter, and I'm always anxious about being surrounded by clutter and having to dig into said clutter to find something I need. (both physically and in a more abstract space, like digital clutter)
So yeah, if people find account creation and logging in to be a barrier, I can empathize.
Having issues with anxiety myself, I can understand how this could be an issue for you and why changing it up could be a problem.
I probably have already seen this suggested somewhere, but have we considered turning off non-English characters in thread titles? It probably won't help, but it might slow them down long enough to get some of the other precautions in place?
I suggested it upthread. I actually suggested that new accounts trying to post non-english characters in a thread title get auto-locked and all posts from the previous hour be deleted.
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I probably have already seen this suggested somewhere, but have we considered turning off non-English characters in thread titles? It probably won't help, but it might slow them down long enough to get some of the other precautions in place?
That's been suggested before. I'm not sure how long that would slow the spammers down, but I suspect it would be measured in minutes, and in hours if we were very lucky.
The flip side is that a lot of the role-players use non-English characters as special effects, especially in the play-by-post:
"আমার হোভের ঈল পূর্ণ," roars the demon. "আমি এই রেকর্ড কিনতে হবে না ; এটা চিরা হয় !"
I don't think this would be as damaging to the community as the CAPTCHA proposal, but I also don't think it would accomplish much.
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I probably have already seen this suggested somewhere, but have we considered turning off non-English characters in thread titles? It probably won't help, but it might slow them down long enough to get some of the other precautions in place?That's been suggested before. I'm not sure how long that would slow the spammers down, but I suspect it would be measured in minutes, and in hours if we were very lucky.
The flip side is that a lot of the role-players use non-English characters as special effects, especially in the play-by-post:
I don't think this would be as damaging to the community as the CAPTCHA proposal, but I also don't think it would do much.
"আমার হোভের ঈল পূর্ণ," roars the demon. "আমি এই রেকর্ড কিনতে হবে না ; এটা চিরা হয় !"
The idea is behavior-based deterrents which are (1) not-disclosed, (2) plural, and (3) released in tandem.
No single behavior-based deterrent will be enough because the behavior will be avoided. If several (say 20-30) smaller behavior-based deterrents were in play then it would be exceedingly difficult to figure out what exactly was causing the block.
Also, the string you posted would be fine in a post; just not as a thread title.
I have an anxiety disorder and I get anxiety over the most random and asinine things. For example, there is a website I haven't used in months because their login system doesn't work with password managers and the idea of having to actually wrangle with it irrationally distresses me and keeps me away. I actually use a password manager specifically because that removes some of the hurdles in account creation and login for me. I have trouble logging into things outside my browser (eg, downloading apps to the iphone, etc) for the same reason that it's not handled by my password manager.
I also tend to avoid making new accounts because when I do that, I feel like I am creating clutter, and I'm always anxious about being surrounded by clutter and having to dig into said clutter to find something I need. (both physically and in a more abstract space, like digital clutter)
So yeah, if people find account creation and logging in to be a barrier, I can empathize.
Having issues with anxiety myself, I can understand how this could be an issue for you and why changing it up could be a problem.
I probably have already seen this suggested somewhere, but have we considered turning off non-English characters in thread titles? It probably won't help, but it might slow them down long enough to get some of the other precautions in place?
Things along this line are one of the many different tactics we have worked with and may still be doing so. We don't talk about specific tactics here because Spammers can read, but suffice to say there has been much more move/counter move going on than is immediately apparent. New tactics are in development even as we speak. This has, and will continue to be, a priority for the dev and community teams.
Why don't we send in the tech team.