Help with spam bot

[Mr Blah]

Hello,

My site keeps getting spammed with porn from a bot. I keep banning the IP's too. What else can I do to get this to stop?

[Mr. PornSharK]

Have you tried putting him in a group that is unable to post?

[ZuCruTrooper2]

Does anyone else feel the irony in this topic?

Not to discount you Mr. SharK, but I think it's kinda funny...

OP:

Do you have email validation and security images enabled? If so, are you using the GD2 style?

Your best bet is to submit a support ticket and allow IPS to investigate the situation.

[.Ryan]

This might help a lot, enjoy. :)

http://forums.dscripting.com/index.php?s=&...post&p=7424

[forums.bd]

I'm having a lot of difficulty dealing with this.

- i added a required custom field.
- email verification required before any posting.

the custom field didn't prove to be effective. i still had as many bots registering as before EVEN with custom field.
but due to verification and i allowed no posting permission, that dropped spam rate in the forum.

but my guest area is still attacked by registered or guest bots everyday.

[ellawella]

IPB 2.2 offers improved protection from spam bots.

[theclub]

I'm having a lot of difficulty dealing with this.

- i added a required custom field.

- email verification required before any posting.

the custom field didn't prove to be effective. i still had as many bots registering as before EVEN with custom field.

but due to verification and i allowed no posting permission, that dropped spam rate in the forum.

but my guest area is still attacked by registered or guest bots everyday.

Make a primary group that is on permanent moderation, promote them to Members when they reach a certain post count. You can always override this if you're sure they're genuine. You can also add Admin approval and check their IPs against this list ... http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/banned.ch


:thumbsup:

[Strange_Will]

Maybe they're pissed users?

Ban their subnet?

[Stuart Elliott]

What I've found to be the most effective, is to make forum #1 a category instead of a normal forum, then place my publically accessible forum inside that category, that way they register, but never get to post anything, because all the spam bots are trying to post into forum #1.

But just turning on email validation is usually good enough to give you a few hours grace period to lock them down.

[Guest]

spam issues should soon hopefully over with ipb 2.2, looking forward to activate it on my boards, so that I'm at least rid of the daily delete task :)

[Smarts]

Hello,

My site keeps getting spammed with porn from a bot. I keep banning the IP's too. What else can I do to get this to stop?

Hello.

Best way to stop same spam bots using same e-mail from comming back i to use the Admin Cp>Managment>Word & Ban Filters>Manage Ban Filters. Then add the e-mails example from a recent spam bot i had;

*@*yourgamesfree.info - place the asterics as shown do same with their ips again example only; *00*000.0.00

Hope that helps?

[Canadian Hotdogman]

IPB 2.2 offers improved protection from spam bots.

My butt. I get spammed every day and I'm currently running 2.2 RC3.

[Michael]

Did he say IPB offers 100% foolproof protection against spam bots? No, he didn't.

[Canadian Hotdogman]

Did he say IPB offers 100% foolproof protection against spam bots? No, he didn't.

Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me!? You better not be talking to me mister!

It's just annoying, that's all.

[Michael]

Yes, I was talking to you, and yes it is annoying. But remember, even with improved CAPTCHA images and all that jazz there's nothing to prevent humans from signing up and spamming. Spam is, unfortunately, a fact of life on the internet.

[Canadian Hotdogman]

Of yes of course humans can still do it... but I doubt I'm dealing with humans to be honest. I would like to get rid of all the bots.

[bfarber]

Why do you doubt you are dealing with humans?

Do you think a bot can HONESTLY read the captcha image that is brand new? They have to be programmed to do so firstly, and as you can add custom fonts and background images, that makes it nearly impossible wouldn't you say?

Secondly, if you add a second required custom field that says something like "What is the sum of 5 and 3" and it's answered correctly - really...do you think a spam bot did that?

Spammers can hire humans that will register manually at 1000's of forums for them and spam the forums for a small fee. I've seen the sites. Given the increased obscurity of registration processes, it's a growing market - having humans do the spamming for you, which will always defeat the captcha and other registration requirements.

[Canadian Hotdogman]

You have some points there Brandon!

[moab]

I have a custom field named "sponsors" and every single spammer who registers puts "google" in that field. Is there a way to delete any registrations who put google in that field? That would get rid of every spam registration

[theleash]

Mine's a pretty small non commercial board and this won't work well for some but the admin validation option has removed all of the spam problems I had. If I don't like the look of the email address or username, the spam one are easy to spot for the most part, I delete them from the validation queue. If I'm unsure, I send out a standard email asking for some info. No reply, no validation.

[bfarber]

I have a custom field named "sponsors" and every single spammer who registers puts "google" in that field. Is there a way to delete any registrations who put google in that field? That would get rid of every spam registration

Require admin approval of registrations.
Before approving registrations, use the member search tool to pull up all the members with google in the name. You can even filter it to just validating members. Then delete those members. Finally, you can go approve any other validating member's remaining.

[Mr Blah]

Ok thanks for all the great ideas.

1. The bot is using different subnets, so cant ban that.
2. The bot is making different accounts.
3. I have security codes enabled.
4. I dont have email because that pisses me off when I have to do that.


5. bfarber, how do I enable the background image thing and the question box?

[theclub]

4. I dont have email because that pisses me off when I have to do that.

Pisses you off when you have to do what?

If you don't have e-mail validation you are allowing people to sign up straight away, without them even needing a proper e-mail address.

You should use e-mail and Admin approval, this will allow you to decide who to validate. You can also check their e-mail address against this database.

As I said in an earlier post, if it's still a problem make a new starter group, put the group on permanent moderation and promote it to full member after X amount of posts, if you are sure the poster is genuine you can then promote them manually if you wish.

There is no magic wand here, if you have a problem you have to deal with it.


:)

[wimpie]

Why do you doubt you are dealing with humans?

Do you think a bot can HONESTLY read the captcha image that is brand new? They have to be programmed to do so firstly, and as you can add custom fonts and background images, that makes it nearly impossible wouldn't you say?

Secondly, if you add a second required custom field that says something like "What is the sum of 5 and 3" and it's answered correctly - really...do you think a spam bot did that?

Spammers can hire humans that will register manually at 1000's of forums for them and spam the forums for a small fee. I've seen the sites. Given the increased obscurity of registration processes, it's a growing market - having humans do the spamming for you, which will always defeat the captcha and other registration requirements.

maybe something to look at:
http://www.botmaster.net/more1/
seems they are able to do alot with those bots..its really starting to be a pain.

[Mat Barrie]

Wow. Also, that page proves that you REALLY need to block all .ru and cashette.com addresses from registering at your forum - apparently that XRumer spam program (oh sorry, the developer says that spam is defined as unsolicited email which it doesn't do - it's a perfectly legal autosubmitter application!) will autoregister email accounts on mail.ru and stuff to validate registrations.