I just accepted 493 members so lets hope the ones that were spammers gave up trying, we're also going to import a new spam IP list, and upgrade to the latest vbulletin with better picture authentication.
Thanks all!
-M
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I just accepted 493 members so lets hope the ones that were spammers gave up trying, we're also going to import a new spam IP list, and upgrade to the latest vbulletin with better picture authentication.
Thanks all!
-M
I just received this personal message:
tullyamo tullyamo is offline
Newbie
Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 0
tullyamo is on a distinguished road
Default Forum problems
Hi,
Is there a way I can get permission to post in the forums? I have made an account and cannot see pics that members have posted and I am not allowed to make threads or reply to other post. I have asked painless the same thing and got no response. I have mailed the forum admin and received a mail delivery error 3 times. I have soo many questions to ask and would love to see all the pics that members have posted. I know it is not your position to make this happen, but could you pass it along to someone that can? Thanks in advance.
Tullyamo
Thank you all for your patience and persistance. To better serve the community, we are currently working on a few things that will allow us to speed up the registration approval process as well as improve the spam banning.
Our community is only a few months old and our staff is all volonteers so as you can imagine, there are a few typical bugs that we are working very hard to work out as quickly as we can.
We especially appreciate the members who report spammers and foul posts as soon as they are spotted. We do what we can to eliminate the nasty stuff quickly, and you help is needed as there are so many threads.
Please keep an eye out for an announcement VERY soon. It is in regards to new membership registration and related details.
Thanks all!
One of the GREAT ways to end the forum spammers dead in their tracks is to custom modify your registration page. Most of the spammers are pre-packaged spambot programs. They target the registration page then post like mad. If your registration page is different than the norm, the spambots have no way to get in.
I did this to my forum and have been spam free ever since.
It takes a little coding to do it, but is well worth the time.
Try ReCapcha for the captcha image. It's very secure and easy to code into an existing registration page.
Plus, every time a user uses it, they are helping digitalize words in old books and newspapers that OCR programs (like the spambots use to hack your existing captcha) cannot figure out.
http://recaptcha.net/
http://recaptcha.net/images/smallCap...RoughAlpha.png
To see it in action, hit my custom registration page on...
http://redneckfabrication.com
It took me about 15 minutes to code it in.
.
Oh, and did I mention it's 100% FREE!
The ReCaptcha should do the trick, but here's some insight on what you need to modify in the registration process to end the spambot programs.
The main registration page is not what they actually attack. It's the next step in the process they exploit. I'm not sure what it is in vBulletin, so I need to explain it with SMF, which is what I use. But they are both similar enough in this case.
Basically, my registration pages URL ends in "=register". The next step, when they click submit, shows in the statcounter logs as "=register2". The spambots have a premade program that sends their info directly to the "=register2" URL, bypassing the need to even hit the main "=register" page.
All you have to do is figure out what that next page is in vBulletin, then change it in the code to anything else.
In my case, I would change "=register2" to anything else, like "=register3" or "=thanks" or anything besides what it is by default. The spambots will still try to hit the "=register2" page with their info, but it would throw a 404 page not found error instead of registering them.
Doing this is tricky, because there may be many references to that second URL where they send their register info. One mistake in the code and no-one can register. So be sure to test it well before making the change live.
Don't bother with a pre-made vBulletin modification to do this, because the spambot program writers are wise to these mods and write new pacages to beat them fairly quickly.
BUT, a pre-made vBulletin mod is a great place to start, as long as you custom modify it further with the info I posted above in mind. The reason I say it's a great place to start is because it will show you EVERY place in the code that needs to be changed, so a lot of the guesswork is taken out each place in the code you need to change.
Though I changed my main registration page ("=register"), as stated above, I haven't bothered to change "=register2" since ReCaptcha works so friggin well. But the day the spammers get through ReCaptcha, "register2" will be changed immediately the same way I described above.
I hope all this info helps.
I see that as I posted these replies, your site was hit yet again.
Good Luck!!
Your Admin friend,
Wayne Sundmacher
BSA Skunkworks
Oh, and to add...
Ever since I added ReCaptcha, new users can post directly after registering.
I did away with email activation because I know that most new users want to post right away.
I'm still spam free, even though ReCaptcha is the ONLY thing in place now to block spammers.
It works that well!!
Admin PLEASE do something about the
SPAM & PORN
This is getting a bit ridiculous. Maybe you should try ElectricSquid's solution!
Yes Please do something.
I'm not thrilled about getting an Email telling me there is a new post I subscribed to, only to find it is B.S. spam.
Glen