KevC wrote: ↑Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:45 am
No, it'll slow down registration if you have lots of IPs in the ban table that have to be searched first to see if the new account is on there. Spammers rarely use the same IP twice.
The ones trying to spam this particular forum aren't that clever then ... I had three all from same IP earlier this month!! And they weren't even similar usernames! Most were also using gmail accounts which are harder to block enmass. It's not a heavily used site either as the vehicle that it supports is slowly getting rarer (they rust badly!).
The registration is via a web page, not direct on phpbb, as it gives access to website features too so we're trying to block those with changes to that page/form. (Recaptcha isn't working obviously).
So we're having to block them AFTER they've got access and are doing this via the IP range to avoid flooding the forum with junk. I missed one a couple of weeks ago and got 17 spam posts in quick succession!!
rgds
So now we want to find a quick and simple way to prevent them re-accessing the forum at all .. even those we've banned with username, ip and email still seem to appear in the "Last Active" column randomly.