[Split] Using Advanced Block Mod to Prevent Spam

Martin Truckenbrodt · Post by **Martin Truckenbrodt** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 5:14 pm

Hello,
if you want to fight against human spammers successfully just use Advanced Block MOD. Then you don't need any CAPTCHA and any Q&A. Just set Account Activation to User or User+Admin to prevent the last ones of the spammers.

Update after topic splitting:
Please read my last post in this topic: http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... #p12941100 .

Bye Martin

callumacrae · Post by **callumacrae** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 6:53 pm

Martin Truckenbrodt wrote:Hello,
if you want to fight against human spammers successfully just use Advanced Block MOD. Then you don't need any CAPTCHA and any Q&A. Just set Account Activation to User or User+Admin to prevent the last ones of the spammers.

Bye Martin

Seriously? You can stop saying that now. I know it was useful the first couple of times, but the stopforumspam modification does exactly the same thing, and he's already installed it.

~Callum

Martin Truckenbrodt · Post by **Martin Truckenbrodt** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 7:34 pm

Hello Callum,
you still have CAPTCHA or Q&A enabled, or not?
As you can see it on my statistics Advanced Blcok MOD is doing a better job. StopForumSpam is sharing the data with the DNS blacklist opm.tornevall.org.

Always the same questions are resulting always the same answers.

What's the original problem? phpBB needs more and better Anti spam technics included by default.

Bye Martin

callumacrae · Post by **callumacrae** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 8:10 pm

Martin Truckenbrodt wrote:Hello Callum,
you still have CAPTCHA or Q&A enabled, or not?
As you can see it on my statistics Advanced Blcok MOD is doing a better job. StopForumSpam is sharing the data with the DNS blacklist opm.tornevall.org.

Always the same questions are resulting always the same answers.

What's the original problem? phpBB needs more and better Anti spam technics included by default.

Bye Martin

I have Q&A enabled. So?

~Callum

Martin Truckenbrodt · Post by **Martin Truckenbrodt** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 8:18 pm

Hello Callum,
if you would use Advanced Block MOD you could disable it and your users would not been annoyed by it.

Bye Martin

callumacrae · Post by **callumacrae** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 9:33 pm

Martin Truckenbrodt wrote:Hello Callum,
if you would use Advanced Block MOD you could disable it and your users would not been annoyed by it.

Bye Martin

My users are not annoyed by it.

Every time a new bot is made, what catches the first day of posts without a captcha? That's easily 20,000 posts before it gets into the blacklist. A blacklist by itself is not possible.

~Callum

miguel723 · Post by **miguel723** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 9:43 pm

emcha wrote:
Callum95 wrote:
creativecosmos wrote:Greetings and thank you for your work.

Let's be honest here, 3.0.8 is not effectively handling spam.
Since installing the update the problem has gotten much worse.
It is the biggest drawback to using this excellent format.

I want to run a series of new websites with phpbb, but can't with this problem.
There is not the time or desire to waste endless hours unnecessarily.

Most of the suggestions in this looooong thread help a bit but eventually not.
New solutions and tougher security are called for in this evolving case.

Programmers, help us, we need it.

Thank you.

~CC
3.0.8 is efficient at handling spam, but the admin doesn't know how to use it*

I'm getting no spam. At all.

~Callum
I'm sorry, it's not hard to set up. You make an account at ecaptcha, input the two keys and it's done. The problem is that bots have been able to pass through it, plain and simple. Which is why I changed to Q&A. I used to have 3-5 bot account register every day. Since I placed Q&A with the answer in the user agreement itself, since my forum rules are now shown there too, 0 spam account registry inalmost 2 weeks now.

Can you please give a step by step (like what php files to change and with waht and what to download), on how you did this as I'm struggling to get my 3.0.8 to work properly, I am getting like 10 to 15 bots registering every day and its a pain in the A$$.

Martin Truckenbrodt · Post by **Martin Truckenbrodt** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 9:49 pm

Hello ~Callum,
are you sure that they are not annoyed? Have you asked them?

Sorry, what you are writing else for me sounds a little bit like fairytales based on your personal theories. You should try it and after this test we can continue our discussion comparing different ways to prevent forum spam.

Bye Martin

callumacrae · Post by **callumacrae** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 10:07 pm

Martin Truckenbrodt wrote:Hello ~Callum,
are you sure that they are not annoyed? Have you asked them?

Sorry, what you are writing else for me sounds a little bit like fairytales based on your personal theories. You should try it and after this test we can continue our discussion comparing different ways to prevent forum spam.

Bye Martin

You ignored my second point. Please tell me how the blacklist will stop the first 20,000 posts.

Yes, I have asked them. In fact, I just did, in IRC

They're all perfectly happy with it, it takes seconds to complete

~Callum

emcha · Post by **emcha** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 10:13 pm

Martin Truckenbrodt wrote:Hello Callum,
you still have CAPTCHA or Q&A enabled, or not?
As you can see it on my statistics Advanced Blcok MOD is doing a better job. StopForumSpam is sharing the data with the DNS blacklist opm.tornevall.org.

Always the same questions are resulting always the same answers.

What's the original problem? phpBB needs more and better Anti spam technics included by default.

Bye Martin

The more questions you have, the less chances of a bot being able to have an answer to them all. Even more so that they are random. I'm glad your add on is working for you. Mine is working perfect for me.

Martin Truckenbrodt · Sat Jan 22, 2011 10:22 pm

Hello Callum,
I have not ignored your second point. See the last part of my answer. Where is your point about the 20.000 posts coming from? Please give me a source.

@emcha: This is a discussion and not a whitepaper.

Bye Martin

emcha · Post by **emcha** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 10:25 pm

just saying, we don't have to bash our heads in

some might prefer one way the other the others.

Martin Truckenbrodt · Sat Jan 22, 2011 10:38 pm

Hello emcha,
now I can say: Yes, you are right!

BTW: The frist post of this topic should be a whitepaper. But it is absolutely too much incomplete to be really helpfull enough.

Bye Martin

Pony99CA · Post by **Pony99CA** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 10:53 pm

Martin Truckenbrodt wrote:I have not ignored your second point. See the last part of my answer. Where is your point about the 20.000 posts coming from? Please give me a source.

Your response of:

Sorry, what you are writing else for me sounds a little bit like fairytales based on your personal theories. You should try it and after this test we can continue our discussion comparing different ways to prevent forum spam.

did not really address the question. It was merely an attack and a suggestion to try your MOD.

That said, I think he was ballparking with the 20,000, but let me ask it a different way. Somebody sets up a spambot on a different IP address that uses new E-mail addresses and user names. How can a blacklist catch this before the spambot has tried to register hundreds (if not thousands) of accounts?

Even if the blacklist has honeypots and allows user feedback from those being spammed, I presume they don't blacklist somebody until a certain threshold of reports is reached. It's the zero-day issue, just like with malware.

That said, it probably would be a good idea to make the Check IP against DNS Blackhole List setting use a plug-in concept, too, just like CAPTCHAs. That would allow the user to select which blacklist(s) worked best for their board.

Steve

Martin Truckenbrodt · Sun Jan 23, 2011 12:08 am

Hello Steve,
commonly you are right with the first point. Indeed the spammers ip addresses have to been listed before spam can been prevented by them.
But:
It seems that most of spammers or nearly all of spammers are not using different or dynamic ip addresses.
They are not only using forum spam for their "ecommerce". Perhaps they are sending spam emails and perhaps others, too. So perhpas they will been blacklisted for other activities, too.

It seems that access.atlbl.net (ATLBL) and opm.tornevall.org (~ StopForumSpam) are specialized for forum spam. With Advanced Block MOD the DNS IP RBL check is used only in a passive way. These two services are offering an API with account registration which makes it able to report new spammers. I don't know the policies for these blacklists (databases). Phils ATLBL MOD is using this API. I'm thinking about adding it to the next generation of Advanced Block MOD, too. But before I'm waiting for the frist BETA of Ascraeus.
Indeed there is a zero-day-issue. But I think for blacklists it's better called a zero-minute-issue. It's easier to find spammers as to find malware. And you have not to program or to wait for new signature or pattern updates.

With your definition you can say that Advanced Block MOD adds a plugin system for the Check IP against DNS Blackhole List setting!

It's using different blacklists! MOD using webmasters can change these settings from ACP, if they want! But my topical recommended default settings are working perfectly at least on my boards. Look here for the features list, MOD description and screenshots: http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/a ... block_mod/ . Then you know what you are talking about.

It's done! Just try it!

Bye Martin

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