New method of spam prevention installed

LPChip · May 30, 2007, 19:54:16

I have installed a new method to prevent spambots from doing what they like to do most.

I am not really sure if it'll work, but we'll see that soon enough.

In theory it works, and so far as I've tested the theory, it works too.

However, if you experience problems, and you keep getting a message that spamprevention has prevented you from doing that of what you tried, please send me an email: modplug [at] lpchip [d0t] com and I'll assist.

LPChip · May 30, 2007, 20:21:51

To add:

I've also done a big sweep through the user-database.

I removed all inactive users.
I removed all users with 0 posts and no "last visit" set.

These are spambots that have registered and either managed to activate their account but not used it yet, or not at all activated it.

Asharin · May 30, 2007, 23:20:29

Nice work man

Sam_Zen · May 31, 2007, 00:50:31

Great.
For quite a while I hoped you would clean this. I can remove spam-posts, but I often noticed obvious spam-accounts as
'new member' so with 0 posts.

Snu · May 31, 2007, 05:31:20

well, it was worth a try :p

LPChip · May 31, 2007, 09:39:52

Lets see how bad things are. I might need to add more security to it.

It might prevent some more spammers making our work less "bad"

Sam_Zen · June 01, 2007, 00:02:43

Let's not have the illusion, that now nothing will slip through anymore.
But since I run a daily routine to cleanup the place, I first like to see how it's going now, to measure if the spamnumber is decreased.

Snu · June 01, 2007, 00:34:22

i know, i just thought it was funny

LPChip · June 01, 2007, 07:58:50

Quote from: "Snu"i know, i just thought it was funny

In some way it is, but somehow, I'm glad he registered at the first day after this fix. Cus now we know we still need to be alert for spammers.

But I estimate that new spam companies will succesfully make their first spam attempt, but then they can't do it a second time anymore.

Atleast we're protected against mass-register scripts.

LPChip · June 02, 2007, 22:58:39

Appearantly the spam prevention didn't do much, if it did something at all.

The method used now (putting it inside a password-protected directory) seems to help alot better, atleast Purple Motion is using this technique, and he haven't had spam ever since.

However, I need to see if this prevents search engines from finding the forum etc.

SoundCrafter · June 03, 2007, 02:05:48

I'm going to go ahead and say what everyone else is thinking.

That is ANAL.

xincbox · June 10, 2007, 22:15:07

LP, is there any phpbbhack / mod you could reccommend for spam problems? i'm a member of a fair few forums that get it really quite bad but nothing i've tried so far works, and it's getting quite bad with stuff that could be offensive considering our wide age range of members

sorry if this is considered off topic

LPChip · June 10, 2007, 22:45:35

Quote from: "xincbox"LP, is there any phpbbhack / mod you could reccommend for spam problems? i'm a member of a fair few forums that get it really quite bad but nothing i've tried so far works, and it's getting quite bad with stuff that could be offensive considering our wide age range of members

sorry if this is considered off topic

Considdered that this topic has been "finished" as the spam prevention seems to work, its okay to go offtopic.

I cannot recommend any hack or whatsoever, simply because I constructed this protection on my own.

The hack I did is quite messy, but can be turned into a much more easy to read and install hack.

There's one requirement though: your forum must have the ability password protect a subdirectory using a http-auth. (thats using an .htaccess file)

Give me some time to improve the hack, and if still interested in it, I can give it to you.

Sam_Zen · June 10, 2007, 23:12:39

It seems to work indeed. No spamposts so far, after the switch.

xincbox · June 11, 2007, 08:26:25

that would be ace, but i'm not too nifty at php but i can give it a go.