What can other uses suggest for spambot defense.

[SMP1977]

Good afternoon all,

My tiny little BBS forum is getting clobbered with spambots.

I tried to set up a recpatcha last night and i have my key and secret key, however when i go into the ACP is see that recaptcha v2 and recpatcha v3 are there, but greyed out? I guess i am missing something. I would like to do something becasue babysitting the spambots is a fulltime job on a 0$ revenue forum.

Help?

[KevC]

Q&A works fine. You just need the right kind of question that cannot be searched for. One that needs some intelligence and logic to work out, like something about your logo or a word on your site (like the 2nd word of the description).

[SMP1977]

Q&A works fine. You just need the right kind of question that cannot be searched for. One that needs some intelligence and logic to work out, like something about your logo or a word on your site (like the 2nd word of the description).

We have some pretty tough Q&A's currently. I can try to beef it up or change them entirely until this bot tsunami subsides.

Do you not think captchas are any good?

[bonelifer]

You can try adding Rich's StopForumSpam extension: https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/exte ... forum_spam // https://github.com/rmcgirr83/stopforumspam It kills most of the automated spammers.

[SpIdErPiGgY]

I use
https://perishablepress.com/8g-firewall/

And
https://perishablepress.com/blackhole-bad-bots/

But this need core edits...

[KevC]

We have some pretty tough Q&A's currently. I can try to beef it up or change them entirely until this bot tsunami subsides.

It doesn't actually have to be difficult. It just needs some logical 'human' understanding of what the question is asking you, like knowing what a logo is a picture of or which is the 3rd word in the title.

Do you not think captchas are any good?

If they get beaten you're a bit done for. I tend to like Q&A because I can control how the question works and adapt it if necessary.

[Mick]

We have some pretty tough Q&A's currently

You only need one Q&A, if you have several and one of them gets defeated you won’t know which one it was and will have to replace all of them.

[ssl]

Q&A works fine. You just need the right kind of question that cannot be searched for. One that needs some intelligence and logic to work out, like something about your logo or a word on your site (like the 2nd word of the description).

And in addition to this solution I activate the group of New Registered Users to filter the first 2 messages of new members.

[nou nou]

I use
https://perishablepress.com/8g-firewall/

And
https://perishablepress.com/blackhole-bad-bots/

But this need core edits...

I use both of those as well, and also https://www.wizcrafts.net/htaccess-blocklists.html

Plus the Sortables Captcha and Stop Forum Spam extensions.

Spam has completely stopped apart from the odd human spammer once or twice a year - it's mostly AI scrapers that are any hassle now.

[SMP1977]

Thank you all for your insights. I think my problem was too many Q&A's with too many answer options and left unchecked for too long. After some great moral support i got in a PM i have modified the process and ..for now..

All is blissfully quiet on the spambot front.

Appreciate all this.