Spambots and You

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:34 pm

Again, I think that would require some kind of phpBB mod (AFAIK, it's not a standard feature)

Also, I just wanted to say good job, um, not doing anything... lately the spambot threads I've removed have been untouched, which is always nice

ATOMICMAN · Post by **ATOMICMAN** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:42 pm

im pretty sure its standard on one of the versions its just a matter of enabling it.

even if it is a mod, it is a pretty damn good one. i mod another forum using phpbb and we have manual activation and broad ip bannings (including most of the popular proxies and a few websites) on there.

SpongeBuell wrote:Again, I think that would require some kind of phpBB mod (AFAIK, it's not a standard feature)

Also, I just wanted to say good job, um, not doing anything... lately the spambot threads I've removed have been untouched, which is always nice

maybe some people actually have read the forum rules (which is a true 8th wonder of the forum world).

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 4:01 pm

ATOMICMAN wrote:maybe some people actually have read the forum rules (which is a true 8th wonder of the forum world).

It could also be that you are called an idiot if you do post in a spambot thread.

Post by **Skyone** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 4:41 pm

ATOMICMAN wrote:there seems to be a lot of spambots from this stupid brittney spears website.

are you able to ip ban them or are they using a proxy (you should ip ban atleast the popular proxy sites)?

or maybe start up the request for each member to be activated manually.

Mmmm, they use real proxies, not CGI/PHP Proxies. That means that every bot has a different IP Address.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:24 pm

Is it just me, or have there been a lot of spambots in the last couple days?

ATOMICMAN · Post by **ATOMICMAN** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:15 pm

Skyone wrote:
ATOMICMAN wrote:there seems to be a lot of spambots from this stupid brittney spears website.

are you able to ip ban them or are they using a proxy (you should ip ban atleast the popular proxy sites)?

or maybe start up the request for each member to be activated manually.
Mmmm, they use real proxies, not CGI/PHP Proxies. That means that every bot has a different IP Address.

wow they are getting a lot smarter then.

Post by **gannon** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:19 pm

Not really, almost all of them have been like that for the past few years.

siegeshot · Post by **siegeshot** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 7:09 am

I was thinking maybe if someone could make a little (Report this thread) button on each post we could just report the spambot threads to make everyones jobs a lil easier? The first few I saw thats what I looked for too.

Ya know, send the link to an email or somethin. I dunno.

Every board has these problems, not a lot you can doooo.

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:59 am

usually we catch them pretty quickly anyway, so the report button wouldn't work as well. Actually, part of the issue is Ben not installing phpBB mods. A while back, I made a mod that would ask what 2+2 is, and you couldn't even register (much less post) unless that question was answered. Since these are all computers, not actual persons, they wouldn't answer that (and probably not correctly)

siegeshot · Post by **siegeshot** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 6:41 pm

Niiiiiiiiice. Well there is that handy dandy one where you have to figure out the letters and they're all screwed up and crooked and have dots in them and stuff. I get them wrong sometimes though.

They're tricky!

Post by **gannon** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 7:13 pm

That's called a CAPTCHA and is easy for most bots to defeat (There's one on the forum registration page already)

siegeshot · Post by **siegeshot** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:16 pm

I couldn't remember if we had one here already or not. Darn!

Maybe we should have a book, and you give us a page, paragraph and # and we go hunt the word down each time.

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:25 pm

I think that the 2+2 mod I made would be best... simple enough that anyone can do it (and if they can't, they probably shouldn't be here

) but it's unique enough that bots cannot get past

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:43 pm

SpongeBuell wrote:I think that the 2+2 mod I made would be best... simple enough that anyone can do it (and if they can't, they probably shouldn't be here ) but it's unique enough that bots cannot get past

Would it just be 2+2, or a random simple problem?

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 9:30 am

probably 2+2... the only thing really needed is something out of the ordinary from other boards.