spammer's IP traceable?

[koto Nizna]

Can LL trace the IP address of those annoying spammers and ban them for the rest of their stupid lives?

[Anny Broek]

Only if they use a static IP address, but i'm sure they use a proxy which is changeable all the time and not traceable.

Besides that i noticed they are making new accounts every time they start the spamming.

[Dilbert Dilweg]

They are probably using a bunch of proxy hubs. hard to catch..

[Dante Tucker]

Good spammers never use the same ip. They also tend to make their accounts far in advance of actually using them to spam, making tons and then letting them sit for weeks before they come back and use them to spam.

And then by the time you ban them, they already have more accounts just sitting waiting to be used.

[Peewee Musytari]

LL can "accidentally" block people from using SL on their computers - You only have to check these boards to see how often - The block is resistant to IP changing and blocks all alts. So if they can do that by accident I don`t see why they couldn`t do it delieberately.

Having said that, spam is a fact of life on the internet, we all manage to ignore it in our emails & even laugh at some of it. Personally it wouldn`t be top of my wishlist for things I would like to see LL spend time fixing, but it would be nice if the spammers would just choose to go away lol

[Finora Kuncoro]

An alternate approach might be to be limit the number of posts per day new forum members can make and/or have automatic moderation/checking of their posts.

You see this approach used on some sites like the NYT and the Economist. 

[Ian Undercroft]

The simplest way in which to deal with the issue would be to ensure that there was 24/7 moderation. The spammers strike when the the moderators, who I assume are all US based, sleep.

[Torley Linden]

Some history: yes, we can trace IPs. But as pointed out, yes, the spammers have been spoofing and rotating through IPs. We went to the source and asked the company (IX Web Hosting) that hosts the spammers' site to shut it down, since they also spam/scam at a variety of other places. Sadly, IX was unhelpful and unwilling to investigate further without having us jump through a head-scratching amount of legal hoops — despite stating in their own terms of service that they don't allow such behavior, and the mass of evidence we showed. ARGH frustrating I know, right?

Our moderators are here 7 days a week. I don't know what hours of coverage, though. If you have further questions about this, you can ask at the Community Tools User Group. Transcripts are saved for future reference.

[Peewee Musytari]

Thankyou Torley, it is good to know that something was tried even if it wasn`t successful, I am sure that all those posting threads about the spammers will be glad to know that their pleas didn`t go unheard