I have a board that only allows registered users to create or respond to threads, but somehow the cialas/viagra people have found a way around it and we are getting inundated w/ spam.

how can we fix this?

Quoted from thetoad

I have a board that only allows registered users to create or respond to threads, but somehow the cialas/viagra people have found a way around it and we are getting inundated w/ spam.

how can we fix this?

Sme thing here.  We've been overrun with cialas/viagra postings the past week. In addition, this morning, all of the topics and posts in one of our boards disappeared this morning...you can still find a message or two in there but it's all labeled "unavailable."

Thoughts?

stu

Justin, you have to find a fix to this.  Users shouldn't have to disallow guest access to prevent bots from posting.  Isn't there a way to disable all bots from posting a message?

I may have a fix for this, try posting a new thread or reply to the test thread over at:

http://www.opportunitynowhere.co.uk/cgi-bin/975/Blah.pl?

It's an extra Confirm Post selection which a bot will not be able to do so can't post as a guest.

If you think it is OK then I'll make a mod, this was done in 9.71b

Hmm, I think P9.5 or so had a post bug where guests could still post even if permissions were turned off.  Make sure you're up to date.

I'm looking into Akismet, but I doubt I can incorporate it.

In P9.75+ you can use capatula and it'll make sure that people who register are actual people and not bots.

Akismet should work:

http://search.cpan.org/~nikolay/Net-Akismet/lib/Net/Akismet.pm

The problem is, I'll have to make a spam board where these posts will go because not all posts are spam.  We will be one of the first/only forums to have this feature though.

I may just make it report an error for guests, while all registered users will be able to post since they use Capatula.  PLUS it'd be a lot of bandwidth for checking all posts on heavy forums.

My way works, a bot can't make a choice from a dropdown menu.  I don't get spam on my boards that have guest posting enabled.

Akismet protects a lot of the WordPress blogs out there.

Quoted Text

Live Spam Zeitgeist

36,774,250 spams caught so far

708,898 so far today

90% of all comments are spam

http://akismet.com/

the confirm post works now but bots can be taught to select a drop down.  the best thing would be one of those word confirmations, where the user has to type in a word to verify.  there are some free packages that do this which can be integrated into eblah - i'll look into it.  i dont have time to write a mod, unfortunately, but with the amount of cialis finding its way onto my board i may not have a choice!

I've already said I'm thinking of adding Aksimet protection.  I use it on my blog and haven't got a single spam since it was installed.

Quoted from Justin

I've already said I'm thinking of adding Aksimet protection.  I use it on my blog and haven't got a single spam since it was installed.

That would be 1st class Justin and E-Blah would just be even better. Wish I was more knowledgable to help out.

I've seen one mod out there for Phorum which is php and that mod just deletes the post so no extra board.

Yeah, what I was thinking is having the option to the admin to offer an error page to the user OR just deleting the post without even telling the user.

You'll have to register your site with Akismet though, but it's free and easy.

And you need to read my e-mail post on the Admin board, Martin.

justin - askimet is supposedly great but i beleive it is a hosted solution.  what if askimet is down, or just slow, or if they decide to start charging for their service, etc... also, i think askimet works by scanning the post.  

dont get me wrong! i think askimet is a great solution but if you could have multiple methods then why not.  it certainly wouldnt hurt if a mod was out there to do what i described as well, and let the user choose which method they want.  

by the way, i tried to temporarily put a password on the board in question, but it seems that requires you to be logged in as well... i have no excuses, of course - its really time for me to upgrade.  just hard to find time for these things and my board has 1600+ users who dont tolerate downtime so well...

Quoted Text

One of the reasons we're doing Akismet is we've built up a highly fault-tolerant infrastructure that can handle huge amounts of traffic and processing. However if something ever does go wrong your comments will simply go into the moderation queue.

http://akismet.com/faq/

This would only target guest posts.  Nothing else.

I doubt they'll ever charge for it ...

that is probably true.  are you saying you prefer if i DONT write up a mod for the numerical/word verification system?  i just didnt think it would hurt but you seem to be very into the askimet idea?

I know Akismet works because of all the spam it catches on my blog.

You could do a capatula system about the same way I did on the Register pages, but I suggest against it (those things are lame and just make it so no one wants to post on your forum, I think ).