I can't find the thread where this was discussed last time, but recently I've been seeing at least ten spam threads per day. Clearly the Tor ban is serving absolutely no purpose, so please get rid of the blacklist forever.

You are right.
Let us disable every kind of protection since 10 of 10000 attempts are not correctly blocked.

Then, while we are talking about this, have you already asked to your email provider to remove every spam filter from your email account since you still receive 4 spam emails a day?

Please, be aware of what is happening on the web.

If our filters are sometimes not enough, it doesn't mean that they are useless.

Funny you should say that, because I've never received a spam mail and there is no spam filter at all on my server.

If other forums can manage spam just fine without blocking Tor (not just registration or posting, but all access), why can't TMO?

I'm happy for you if you live in a peaceful world without spam and without the need for spam filters.
But, explain me why in that peaceful world do you need to hide yourself in the middle of millions users doing any kind of malicious activity?

Why do you accept to appear exactly like the guy that with the same ip tried a defacement one second before?

Do you know how the forum's anti spam filter plugins are working?

Just because I live in the same street as a registered sex offender does not mean that I am one.

I am all for security and anti-spam measures but I think that dumb measures are no better than no measures at all. Blocking by IP is about as dumb as it gets. If the forum infrastructure cannot do better then so be it but please be honest and say it how it is, do not pretend that IP filtering is the bees' knees.

@pichlo
tmo has (since years) a plugin matching ip+email/username to block unwanted spam comparing those records with spotted ones on common blacklists.

It is not enough.

Before apply the (dumb) ip blacklist we reached a level of spam that it was impossible to be managed by any number of human moderators.
That's why we activated this block.

How this could happen? - How many usernames or emails can use a single ip address to register new accounts?

Why they are targeting us?
Probably because our community is big enough to be interesting and enough complicated to (statistically talking) hide some flaw.
The same offending ips often try any kind of approach to make damages. (code injection, common vulnerabilities...)


Are there better solutions? Probably yes, but nothing immediately usable.

Why our techstaff does not work every day, 24h a day on this issue to create a better solution satisfying tor users while blocking all spam?
Because when you talk about techstaff you are talking about just a few guys with a real life very busy, that are facing everyday with the complexity of the servers of this community trying to do their best during their limited free time.

This is the situation.

To be clear - effective solution in a limited time to obtain the best protection.

Suggestions and help are welcome.

Do you have ANY stats that proves the effectiveness of IP blocking ?
I use tor on occasion, professionally, when I do pen tests.
IP blocking is ok for certain situations, like how secure DNS uses it to block malicious sites, yet, even there it is of limited effect.

Whoa, you're treading dangerously close to "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" here. Also, I don't necessarily use Tor to hide my own activities, but to help others who are genuinely in danger in hiding theirs. The more everyone looks the same to anyone trying to peer in, the less those in imminent danger risk being found.

See for example:
http://smarimccarthy.is/blog/2015/01...ation-warfare/

And again, feel free to block registration for new users using Tor, but is logging in for already existing users or even just being able to see the website that much to ask for?

Maybe turn this into a poll for TMO users vote