The Keys to TEDEX

I re-enabled TEDEX for open self-registration about a week ago. It has been closed for over a year. Note, this registration does not include automatic approval.

After several hours of being open the registrations started coming in again. There must be some sort of search engine discovering new open registration on line.

Approximately  99.99524 percent are from the Ukraine, Russia, China and other non English countries half way around the globe from the USA. Yes, I can trace every IP address. I allowed the first dozen access to the BBS to see what would happen. It only took a day for the first garbage post to be placed.

I blew away those first “dirty dozen” and have rejected hundreds of applications since. Some one failed the test and spoiled it for everyone.

All of them choose some mambo-jumbo user name mostly just a series of random looking letters. I don’t know who they are but I imagine they are kiddies playing with their computers and like to see if they can pass the “entrance examine”. Some are real spammers.

Mostly they just join, but the spam is what sets up the security fence. If they all look like a duck, walk like a duck, quack like a duck, swim like a duck and smell like a duck… well guess what… I am a firm believer in profiling.

I welcome real interested on-topic members from any country/nationality to join. However, I am not providing a blank wall for any internet hoodlum anywhere to display graffiti. There is no internet “right” for anyone to post whatever they please, only the opportunity. I control that opportunity.

There is a way into TEDEX and I provide keys in the welcome message, but it will remain difficult for the ducks. So if you wonder why it is so hard to join, you have the reasons. It wasn’t always this hard. Tsk. Such is life on the Internet. I will play the game for awhile. Watching the ducks fly in is fun and when it is not, I can just lock the gate and drain the pond.

Update November 1, 2012

Well, today I locked the gate but haven’t drained the pond. I removed all links to TEDEX from my other sites.