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Deletions or reports do not work after botcheck Anonymous 01/11/2025 (Sat) 04:40 [Preview] No. 23305 [X]
ENDCHAN FLOOD UPDATE - 2025 01 14

Situation now
All posting on the usual clearnet domains .org, .net, .gg are disabled. Magrathea.endchan.net can be used for that. Note: the captcha was broken, so all posting stops when "captcha enabled for all posts" is set in the setting.
Moderation is possible via endchan.org.
If you browse the site you can notice the political facade of the attack was ditched altogether, now it's just shit and recycled text from earlier posts. Note: we don't deal in investigations, who does it and what are the motives, so don't ask.

What we did
Since we found recaptcha, hcaptcha and captcha in general insufficient, we believe Proof-of-Work route is more promising. We experimented with Kiwiflare and the suggested Basedflare, we found them lacking and not easily configurable for our needs. And while we experimented with them, they just caused annoyance to mods, users, and us. We decided to implement our own solution, this is now we are working towards.
On the long run captcha's still can be added somehow, since they have to be solved, they still cost to the attacker.

About Wrongthink
It is quite possible that wrongthink.net will be secured first because we have easier time to work with that codebase.
For now some amount of flood is directed to it, we saw them each day. It is possible for communities to create hidden boards, and block whole countries from posting, however if you announce your board, it won't remain "hidden" for long and you can expect flood. WT lacks certain features to really offer an alternative at this moment, but on the long run perhaps all Endchan communities should move there.

To all the users:
Thank you for your patience and your loyalty. Endchan experienced all kinds of issues since it was set up in 2015, and we might missing some limbs, but we are chugging forward like the Little Engine That Could.
Still all those who want to tell their opinion are welcomed and they are allowed to do it.


Original message in this post
I can't moderate and my board is filled with shit.
Yes, this Anon hit the nail on its head. Thank you.
Edited last time by Shiban on 01/14/2025 (Tue) 08:31.


Anonymous 01/21/2025 (Tue) 11:55 [Preview] No.23408 [X] del
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SITUATION UPDATE

Hoping don't have to make this a weekly event, but for now, here's how things are standing.

We discovered couple of bugs in the codebase so we're fixing those too while working on the PoW.
While we hid the hidden boards better we broke image posting, probably have to fix this first. Perhaps opening a hidden board on wrongthink.net might be a better idea for now.
In the past we got many suggestions what to implement to make the mods life better. If any of those were realized, it will be on Wrongthink, there we have way more possibilities. But first we still have to make it fully usable.
Edited last time by Shiban on 01/21/2025 (Tue) 11:56.


Anonymous 01/28/2025 (Tue) 10:34 [Preview] No.27933 [X] del
SITUATION UPDATE

During the last week we addressed a critical bug on Magrathea which made it possible for attacker to avoid solving re- and hcaptchas. This resulted in a couple of days relative lull in the flood. The attacker has a trigger mechanism, that sends new wave of flood on deletion or new posting. This trigger got turned off after we applied the fix, up until about 12 hours ago. Now that it's back on it could mean that he is either fine with paying the captcha solvers, or he has another exploit.
If there are board staff around, you could try dedicating a thread for the flood, and do deletions to trigger him to flood more, pay for more captcha. Every 1000 captcha he has to solve cost him $1-3. We are many, we could rack up a tidy sum for him each month. That is if he has to pay for the solvers.
I'm attaching a userscript for various browser plugins that helps selecting all the posts after a specific post. The script adds a button to each post on endchan.org. I suggest using guerilla scripting, you only have to throw the script into a specific folder and you are good to go after a browser restart. But use the tools that works for you, Grease- or Tempermonkey are just fine.
I know some of the BOs/BVs already using something similar.

We also tried to find a solution for the hidden board - hidden images problem. Not yet resolved.
We also got reports with issues on Tor, for Magrathea if I recall it correctly.
We started to deploy recaptcha on Wrongthink. We are fairly certain the basic lynxchan captcha can be solved by OCR or other techniques which doesn't cost the attacker. The captcha work on Wrongthink isn't finished, there are issues with account and board creation, I think both still needs the original.
On WT we patched up a number of bug, some of which we caused by tinkering. We have little time for testing before applying solutions so breaking something is always a possibility.
And we are still working on the Proof-of-Work (PoW) because we need a set of mitigation tools, and that should cost the attacker in processing power.

Magrathea doesn't pop banned alerts. If your posts don't appear, try to make a post on endchan.org. If you are banned it will show the alert. If your IP was banned as single IP, then you can appeal against the ban. If you are range banned the alert will say so, no appeal is possible.
Globally I don't ban ranges, so I can lift it if I banned you accidentally.

As for the long run we still wish to deploy a self hosted captcha. We aren't fans of 3rd party solutions either.
bycicle, bycicle, BYCICLE
Edited last time by Shiban on 01/28/2025 (Tue) 10:34.


Anonymous 01/28/2025 (Tue) 15:48 [Preview] No.27934 [X] del
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Have to make a correction:
We fixed the hidden images on the hidden boards. I believe previously posted but not displayed files are also in the threads.
Edited last time by Shiban on 01/28/2025 (Tue) 15:48.


Anonymous 02/04/2025 (Tue) 18:51 [Preview] No.27995 [X] del
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SITUATION UPDATE

The main thing of the week: we are forcing captcha on all boards, regardless of the board setting. Reanabled CF PoW on Magrathea. Will see how the two works together.

I saw a question which can be summed up:
>Why Magrathea?
For Endchan's engine, InfinityNow we can't/don't want develop things because it's clunky and buggy. We have DoublePlus engine however, an instance of that is Wrongthink, and Magrathea is an instance of the frontend. It is easier to implement stuff for that. We can build and deploy something to WT, and then we can adapt it to Magrathea.

Right now it seems the recaptcha forces the attacker to restrict his flood somewhat. Right now his goal seem to be to keep shit on the home page and on the overboard.

We have some numbers from recaptcha, plus traffic in general. Our daily stats are always public, link on the home page. Make of it what you will.
Edited last time by Shiban on 02/04/2025 (Tue) 18:52.


Anonymous 02/04/2025 (Tue) 18:53 [Preview] No.27996 [X] del
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The stats.


Anonymous 02/11/2025 (Tue) 18:19 [Preview] No.28215 [X] del
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SITUATION UPDATE

Another week flew by but finally we are getting there with our PoW system. But making it work, and making it work effectively is a two different thing.
Developed tools to clearing up spam too. Tested it all week essentially. It catches false positives, and misses some real spam too. And while it's relatively easy to clear a board with it - in combination with the script posted above -, still have to make it better, and have to think of different approaches.

The flood is on relatively stable level, somewhere between 1500-2000 each day. Most is triggered by user activity, and one wave of flood in the evening (UTC) on several mostly unused boards which were relatively inactive by default, I guess those are the ones which aren't locked down.
Some boards are open, functioning, some are hidden.
If any BOs with inactive boards reads this: try opening a thread or two and allow users back. With the help of the script above it's easier to delete the flood.

Endchan was down for a while, as far as we know the database crashed. However Wrongthing was indeed DoS-ed on at least two occasions. Made the site unavailable.

We understand Magrathea has it's own shortcomings. One of the Anons created a userscript to add conveniences and fix some issues. It can be run with browser extensions such as Grease-/Tempermonkey and related.
https://github.com/JacobSvenningsen/endchan-script
Edited last time by Shiban on 02/11/2025 (Tue) 18:20.


Anonymous 02/18/2025 (Tue) 18:28 [Preview] No.28842 [X] del
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SITUATION UPDATE

Flood is quite manageable, more like a nuisance these days. Posting triggers a flood within a thread, just as subsequent deletions. Once or twice a day boards get flooded, the first and second pages, just enough in each thread to look like it's everywhere. It's quite easy to delete all within a short period of time.
The content used to flood with turned to pure shit, not even recycled texts anymore.
There are periods when posting does not trigger the flood at all.

Wrongthink was down again, not really sure about the causes.

The new tools mentioned in the previous post is getting better. Very few false positives.
We also have a working PoW. Works, but not works well, not as intended. It was deployed on WT for a test run, but had to take it down. We'll figure it out.
Edited last time by Shiban on 02/18/2025 (Tue) 18:28.



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