stop the spamming, use ip blocking

[j9ine]

I've become incredibly frustrated as the amount of fake registrations that get registered by spammers continues to increase. Even with 'user account activation' and 'visual confirmation' enabled the fake registrations continue. I've tried to use email blocking in the ban control area, but most of the email addresses end with gmail.com or other trusted domains which prevents me from blocking them. I would prefer to use the ip blocking feature in the ban control area, but unfortunately there is currently no way to retrieve the ip address for any registered members.

I would like to suggest a new feature for the next version of phpbb. It would be extremely helpful if you recorded the users ip address when the user first registers. Then store that ip address in the phpbb_users mysql table. Just name it user_ip or something similar. Then anytime you notice a fake registration/spam you can retrieve the registered users ip address and add it in the ban control. You could even block the entire range of ip addresses for that specific network. (10.10.10.0-10.10.10.255)

I hope that feature gets included in a future version as it should drastically cut down the amount of spam registrations. Thanks for this great software.

[3Di]

It would be extremely helpful if you recorded the users ip address when the user first registers.

Log IP on registration MOD by TerraFrost does it all, FYI.

[Bobble]

Unlikely to happen as phpBB 3 is feature frozen so unless this is already included it isn't going to show. For tips on blocking the bots see the link in my signature.

[j9ine]

Very useful info. Thanks for posting the links.

I'm going to try the Anti Bot Question Mod and the Log IP On Registration Mode. Hopefully that should cut down on the amount of spam registrations.

[Dave Bean]

I've become incredibly frustrated as the amount of fake registrations

Certainly argree with that, but can't we ban by IP and IP mask already? Didn't seem to help in my situation, seems spammers vary their IP addresses, so I don't bother anymore. Are others having any luck with the IP banning?

[3Di]

I've become incredibly frustrated as the amount of fake registrations

Certainly argree with that, but can't we ban by IP and IP mask already? Didn't seem to help in my situation, seems spammers vary their IP addresses, so I don't bother anymore. Are others having any luck with the IP banning?

did you try IP UNMASK by TerraFrost?

[alvo]

Trying to ban spam by IP address is a poor idea. First of all you won't know what IPs to try to block until after you've got spam, so it would only help with returning spammers. That's complicated by spammers using continually changing IP addresses and many of them using bot nets of compromised computers so the IP addresses are in block that may contain legitimate users. Since most people get IP addresses assigned dynamically, receiving a new one every time they connect, the more IP addresses you block the greater the likelihood of blocking someone who shouldn't be.

Early on I added IP blocks of places that none of my users would be from, the former Soviet Block, parts of Asia and Africa as an attempt to cut down on spam. Once I managed to stop it all automatically I didn;t need the IP blocks, but just left them. That was until about a week ago when a user emailed me about being banned from the forum. Turned out their ISP got bought out and they were now getting assigned an IP address from a block in Africa. So you never know who you'll be affecting, and if they don't tell you and instead simply go elsewhere, you'll won't know you lost someone. Needless to say I've removed all the IP blocks I had.

[Jim_UK]

We really can do without yet another anti-spam topic as we have 3 running at the moment in Support and phpbb discussion.

Please confine activities to those topics.
This is locked

Jim