I am curious about other peoples' experiences dealing with bots and w has worked and what hasn't worked. If I understand the Mystic bot checker, it requires callers to press a specific key (usually Esc) within some time after connecting, and before presenting the login

What I did was I set up the "Matrix login" so that the first
thing people see is a prompt that says, "If you are human, press
1 now." Bots don't get through, so far. The Matrix login then
loads my main login screen. Slapping any key but 1 does nothing.

Another thing you can do is use a port other than 23 for your
BBS. I use 8888. Most bots and crashers go for port 23. And I
guess you know you can block IP addresses.

Just using an alternate port will help a lot. Good luck.

... My reality check just bounced

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/64)
* Origin: From the depths of Bunker 3 (21:1/130)

Thanks Alonzo,
I was wondering about the port assignment and had considered shifting my port number.
I use the same strike esc key x2 if you're human pre long in here also and have my screening set to just flag the crashing attempts. I think I might shift that port assignment.

N2

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][ bst 73 ][
][ de N2QFD][
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--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Queen City BBS (21:1/154)

On 14 Mar 2024, AKAcastor said the following...

Sounds very interesting, the extra features sound awesome. Looking forward to hearing more!

Yes I and those of us who run Image BBS also are looking forward to it, the ML parts of it are basically done and being tested. The Basic code portion of it is still a ways away. Shouldn't be too hard to write that code so hopefully soon...

The bots sure are tenacious! I have been logging attempts to connect,
to see the default credentials being tested, and use these as keywords
to identify bots - for example, if someone connects and the first thing they type is 'root' - that's a bot. That triggers a temporary IP ban (which extends in duration each time it is triggered), which has worked well.

They are pitiful, I have my router blocking 9 different countries right now, I will most likely be adding a couple of more soon. After that Mystic has a 1.2 meg file of blocked IP's over the past 6 years... Unreal..

In the past couple weeks, 42 different times the IP 190.211.255.106 connected to me and was banned. The same IP connected another 141 times while banned.

5 different times the IP 153.0.123.152 connected to me and was banned. The same IP connected another 1248 times while banned!

I've had 2345 unique IPs trigger bans in the past month or so. It's at least kinda interesting to study. :)

Chris/akacastor

It's just gonna keep getting worse.. BTW sorry for taking so long to respond to this, for some reason this Echo got shut off on my scan list.. Jeez...

Al

... Youth is glorious, but it isn't a career

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Wrong Number Family Of BBS' - Wrong Number ][ (21:4/131)