Anti-Spam Discussion Forums

[j0k3r]

...this is a spammer's convention!

Emh... SpamItaBack, where are you?...
_________________
Life is a spam... and I want my frog back!

[SpamItBack]

Hi Joker,

Thanks -- Just spent the last few hours cleaning up the forums... a new form of spam (by one particular group actually) is the forum spam, however I believe we've come up with a solution to that, and shouldn't see any more postings like that... (Had to clean it up this time, but don't believe there will be any more postings like that).

[j0k3r]

[quote](Had to clean it up this time, but don't believe there will be any more postings like that)[/quote]

Geee... i hope!
_________________
Life is a spam... and I want my frog back!

[SpamItBack]

Hi

Actually, yes, this time it should stop 99.9% of the spam that was being sent through. (It is a new type of spam attack that we are looking at), but basically, have disabled 99.9% of that from here. (If it did make it on here now, I'd be surprised).

Thanks

[elium]

SpamitBack - any hints you can give another forum admin on how to further minimise form spam. I'm not getting too many posted messages & those that do appear are deleted, the user wiped & the source email address banned. Then when I start seeing a given domain being used soley by spammers (with no legit users) then I ban that as well - however I'm still seeing at least 5 spam users being created a day even though they don't post ....

[SpamItBack]

Sure, basically what it is is this.

A particular spammer (we know who he is, actually its a small group of people) developed a software tool to 'spam' phpBB (and other popular forum) boards. They have circumvented the protections, so it is totally automated.

Since virtually all phpBB boards are identical (or whichever board you use), all you need to do is "add" an extra field in your registration field, like a "password" question. I.e., say "Please type in the word 'Hello'!". If it is incorrect, you simply don't register them.

Since the tool is totally automated, they will not notice that 'new' request you put in doesn't work, and hence no more spam for you. We haven't had any the last couple days since we did that (go to sign up on our page, and you will see -- the extra question right below the image verification).

Thanks.

[elium]

>"add" an extra field in your registration field, like a "password" question

then I assume that if they do tweak their automated software you just change the text you expect to see in this field ....

ok thanks for that - I'll have a look to see if I can work out how to do that - if not I hope you won't mind me asking for help :)