Forum spam bots

[radman]

One of my forums have reached a considerable size and now I have 60+ spam bots signing up each day?

They bypass the captcha code with ease - is there any remedy for this?

[kilcher]

Probably the most effective way would be to block registrations from free e-mail providers.

[Diether]

What forum are you running?
For phpBB eg I know there are a few mods that can stop them.
Also, have try to enable email activation.

[S.E.O]

Probably the most effective way would be to block registrations from free e-mail providers.

That way you loose a good number of genuine registrations too.

I saw a mod for phpbb which was quite nice all the suer had to do was add two number and sellect the result from the randomised options.

[Jon Reid]

Try this if you're using vBulletin

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=124828

By adding simple, random questions any human with an ounce of brain could answer, the bots are stopped dead in their tracks from even registering.

[GeorgeB.]

Try this if you're using vBulletin

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=124828

By adding simple, random questions any human with an ounce of brain could answer, the bots are stopped dead in their tracks from even registering.

That really does work. I went from daily spam bot registrations to 1 in a month.

[john2k]

You need to be vigilant against forum spammers. Not all forum spammers are bots... some spam operations actually hire people in very low pay areas of the world to help the bots get past captcha and email activation when they cannot do it automatically.

Be sure to always use whatever is available to you in the forum software to fight against the spammers. Captcha & requiring email activation are both important and helpful.

The forum mods that were mentioned can also help quite a lot.

Most important, delete spam and ban the spammers right away, whenever you see them. Recruit other people to help monitor your forum and battle the spam.

Last summer one of my websites was targeted by forum spammers... I had left the site go on its own for maybe 3-4 weeks then when I returned it was loaded with spam. I only did that, went absent, on one site - I won't be doing that again. Every single day I check that site, and my other forums as well, for spam & etc. Took a while for the site in particular to fall off the forum spammer's list... More than likely someone decided that it's not worth their time or resources to continually spam my site when they are banned & deleted within a very short period of time (minutes or hours).

[Paid2postPoster]

if its phpBB try one of the hand coded captcha codes theres many availabe for free. It works much better since people are training there bots to read PHPBB codes so the secure path isn't secure.

[BusinessForums]

One of my forums have reached a considerable size and now I have 60+ spam bots signing up each day?

They bypass the captcha code with ease - is there any remedy for this?

Try banning ip addresses and email addresses known to be used by spammers. I have a list that I am willing to share. PM me if you're interested.

[Lars-Christian]

Try this if you're using vBulletin

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=124828

By adding simple, random questions any human with an ounce of brain could answer, the bots are stopped dead in their tracks from even registering.

I second this as well. It works like a charm, for now at least. I guess that the day enough people use it, it will be broken pretty quickly. Hopefully we can become more advanced as well though

[radman]

Thanx for the informative replies guys

I do have email validation on... and is left with 1000s of non validated accounts

I use IPB... the random easy question sounds like a great idea

Does anyone hav info on extensions like this for IPB..

Blocking free email providers wont work as a lot of my users are using hotmail, yahoo and gmail etc

feedback appreciated, thanx

[lighter]

I have 2 addons on my board which did very well to block off spammers.

1. A simple question you set manually for user to answer in order to register as members.

2. Auto-moderation que for post with "spam" keywords.

[radman]

Thanx L

Im looking for a plugin that will ask the random Q??

[waynelorentz]

For IPB you don't necessarily need a plug-in if you don't want to go that route. Just set up a custom profile question that is easy for someone to answer, like "What is 5-3" and in IPB you can require new registrations to answer it correctly. I did this and one of my fora went from 20 spambots a week to 1 every couple of months.

[radman]

Ive added the random Q in the reg

Lets hope and see

[radman]

http://www.zoopedup.com/forum/index....1&coppa_pass=1

Ive added a question to the reg form which you have to fill in and can only be one answer - zoopedup

Will they be able to bypass this?

tx