Ask HN: Is Hacker News under attack from spam bots? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News under attack from spam bots?

#511

Post by msm_ » Wed, Apr 24, 2024, 10:10 PM UTC

KomoD wrote: post #509

mysteria wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want them to require a email/phone for privacy's sake, but they should definitely have a captcha of sorts to limit bot accounts.

> but they should definitely have a captcha of sorts to limit bot accounts Captchas don't do much, they're super cheap to solve with services like 2captcha, capmonster, etc. You can get recaptcha solved for $0.6/1k, hcaptcha for $0.8/1k or cheaper. (email is pretty cheap too, but still more expensive than captcha solving) Requiring phone verification would be the most effective out of those because it's pretty expens…

I feel strongly about privacy and I always loved the fact that I can post pretty much anonymously on HN (I don't mean this account - it's pseudonymous at best). It's sad bad actors get to ruin this.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News under attack from spam bots?

#512

Post by crtasm » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 1:09 AM UTC

celdon25 wrote: post #506

crtasm wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting that in GP's case it may "only" be that the people running that specific server turned on the phone number requirement to view messages.

I thought that the server setting covered sending messages only, not reading them https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/216679607--Ver... > Verification Levels refer to the levels of security a user must meet before they're allowed to send text messages in a channel.

Oh - perhaps? I feel sure I ran into one I couldn't see recently but would need to check.

A lot of discord servers require you to send a message or add a reaction to indicate agreement with their rules before you can even see the list of actual channels. I wonder if reactions are also blocked?

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News under attack from spam bots?

#513

Post by celdon25 » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:17 AM UTC

crtasm wrote: post #512

celdon25 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that the server setting covered sending messages only, not reading them https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/216679607--Ver... > Verification Levels refer to the levels of security a user must meet before they're allowed to send text messages in a channel.

Oh - perhaps? I feel sure I ran into one I couldn't see recently but would need to check. A lot of discord servers require you to send a message or add a reaction to indicate agreement with their rules before you can even see the list of actual channels. I wonder if reactions are also blocked?

Yes, reactions would be blocked if the server requires a phone number verification to send messages, and it would prevent the channels from being seen.