Stop Spambot Registration

[MOD Robot]

MOD Name: Stop Spambot Registration
Author: Martian
MOD Description: This MOD stops spambots that provide Profile Information during registration in spite of a message saying "leave the Profile Information blank". An e-mail notification will be send every time there was a spambot registration attempt. NOTE: the e-mail notification can easily be left out if you wish.

MOD Version: 1.0.2 (Updated 10/28/06)
Tested on phpBB Version: 2.0.21

Download File: Stop_Spambot_Registration-1.0.2a.zip
mods overview page: View
File Size: 3208 Bytes



Support for this MOD needs to be asked within this topic. The phpBB Teams are not responsible or required to give anyone support for this MOD. By installing this MOD, the phpBB Support Team or phpBB MODifications Team may not be able to provide support.

This MOD has only been tested by the phpBB MOD Team with the phpBB version listed in the topic. It may not work in any other versions of phpBB.

[TerraFrost]

MOD Validated/Released

Notes:

[joenorris]

OK, who's going to be the guinea pig?
I'm tempted, but I think I'll wait.

[Martian]

OK, who's going to be the guinea pig?
I'm tempted, but I think I'll wait.

I guess I have been the guinea pig.

I have been using this MOD on my forums for 4 weeks now, and it has stopped 64 spambot registrations. Only one time there appeared an account with a dubious URL which must have been provided AFTER registration. That account may have been created by a human.

So, IMHO this MOD works very well!

NOTE: if you use this MOD and you don't want to receive e-mail notifications (anymore), then you simply remove the code between "BEGIN/END E-mail Notification". In that case the included file "spambot_notify.tpl" is also needless.

[joenorris]

I went ahead and installed it after I posted earlier.
The forum I am running has seen no activity on this slow weekend, so
only time will tell.

I will report back later with results.

[Onots]

I've gone off and jumped in on this one too.

Spambots finally driven me far enough to start modding my board. Hehe.
It's not a very active place, but members been getting on my back about the bots popping up in the memberlist.

I'll let you know in a while what I think about it. Rudimentary testing by yours truly seems to indicate it does what it's supposed to do.

[johannae]

Works great even with charcoal template and 2.0.18

[p5x]

doesn't the anti-spam acp mod do the same thing as this?

[joenorris]

I've checked a few mods.
Used the one (can't remember the name of it) that removes the
"User Website" during registration which should slow things down.

Look at the other one that stops spam posts in the forum by keyword.

I too, just like Onots have had people complaining about spam
users showing up in the members list, and it's really helpful to receive
email notification if someone is trying to sign up as a bot. I can quickly
look into things (which I've still not had any activity).

[Martian]

doesn't the anti-spam acp mod do the same thing as this?

The Anti-spam ACP MOD and some other MODs remove certain fields during registration. When spambots provide information for these fields, the registration will fail.

I tried that and found out that some Spambots apparently check which fields are available, and only provide information for the available fields. This way these Spambots still get through and create accounts, albeit without spam if you hide all fields. It can be hard to judge which account is from such a spambot and which is not.

In contrary, this MOD does NOT hide Profile Information fields. Instead it shows a message saying "leave the Profile Information blank", which only humans will read. Spambots will enter Profile Information anyway and the registration will fail!

[Onots]

Since I installed the mod I didn't get anymore bots signing up to display their website. Neither did I get a mail about bots trying to signup. I did get a mail when I tried to signup with a website myself.

It seems this thing is working. However I did gain 2 new bots that signed up with no url. They're probably supposed to spam, but they can't since they're not activated.

Overall, I'm already satisfied with this mod. Thanks.

[acharabia]

This MOD has no problem of installing. Work very smooth...
A Idea of this MOD was anyway good and great but...
Actually, I don't beleive these kinds of MODs anymore.
Because even though spam-bots had already read
"VISUAL-CONFIRM" too. You know what is this MOD
logical problem? What can I do spam-bot only just
input ID & E-mail & visual-confirm? If those are all
input by spam-bot then this MOD is not useful anymore.

So there are several methods by my way...
In this time, Birthday MOD is great with term-agreement.
Double using is perfect protect to invade spam-bot I guess...
Cause Spam-bot doesn't know, either can't selcet
date of birthday!!! Anyway don't forget about
spam-bot already read visual-confirm too...

[Martian]

However I did gain 2 new bots that signed up with no url.

How can you be sure these are accounts created by spambots?

You know what is this MOD
logical problem? What can I do spam-bot only just
input ID & E-mail & visual-confirm? If those are all
input by spam-bot then this MOD is not useful anymore.

At least those accounts won't show spam. I have been using this MOD for a month now, and that hasn't happened to me (yet).

[Martian]

Since I installed the mod I didn't get anymore bots signing up to display their website. Neither did I get a mail about bots trying to signup. I did get a mail when I tried to signup with a website myself.

Perhaps there were no spambot registration attempts yet?

[Onots]

However I did gain 2 new bots that signed up with no url.

How can you be sure these are accounts created by spambots?

By the e-mail adress they used to sign up. Russians are not part of my forum's normal habitat. Their usernames "Basup4" and "Posterencejoted" look strange too. Add to that that they fail to activate their account via the mail link. But it's all circumstantial. Of course it could just happen to be to foreigners that happened by my forum and they decided to sign up.

Perhaps there were no spambot registration attempts yet?

Well, before I used to get at least 4 a week. But it could be there have been no more attempts. I'll keep in touch. So far I'm happy with the mod.