v3.0 Request that will help reduce spambots/trolls

[Rod.]

If you have IPB set to make admins approve all new accounts, it would be helpful if there was an IP checker which displayed what country the IP is associated with. 99.999% of my real users are from the US. Anyone who comes in from China or Russia are almost always spam bots. I have to manually check each IP. Knowing the city/state/co would also help deal with trolls/banned members much easier. Oftentimes when you ban a member, he comes back under a new IP, different name; however the IP almost always is from the same city/st. Just a thought. If this can't be built into IPB, a mod would be great.

Thanks for reading...

[bfarber]

There's no standardized way of looking up a country based on the IP. T his would require a complex, ever-changing database of IP-to-country mappings, or integration with a third party service (and all proper services I've seen are pay-only).

As such I think it's best left as a modification. A useful one, granted, but I'd still probably leave it for a custom modification nevertheless.

[sparc]

[quote name='bfarber' date='13 May 2009 - 01:22 PM' timestamp='1242238946' post='1801391']
There's no standardized way of looking up a country based on the IP. T his would require a complex, ever-changing database of IP-to-country mappings, or integration with a third party service (and all proper services I've seen are pay-only).


how about this?
Ban Specific Countries due to Spam?

http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecountry
basically that seems free. Don't know how good it is though.

[Rod.]

Good feedback; thanks guys. I'll continue verifying each IP one at a time for now, and will also give that mod a try. :)

[Bain]

I use GeoIP & ban the majority of countries. I only want English speaking countries to be allowed access to my site.
Therefor I only allow those countries in. It makes my .htaccess smaller.

[bfarber]

I've used the maxmind database you linked to in personal mods. :)

1) It is updated periodically (monthly) so we'd need to keep it up to date
2) You must display a link/acknowledgement in documentation and advertising materials
3) To redistribute (this is the biggie) you have to purchase a commercial redistribution license.

Again....it's just one of those things better left to a modification in my mind. As I've done such mods, I know it's not that difficult to integrate this particular database.