Spam bots are taking over

[Karl]

As you have probably noticed Spam bots are posting like crazy on our forums .

I the sort term i have made the captcha (that stupid image that has impossible to read characters in it) harder and require email verification. Hopefully this will slow them down. If not I will resort to new users cannot post until approved by a moderator... I dont want to do this but I will if we have to.

I will be looking into spam solutions such as using Postini or something else.

[jeppew]

wait...

no more great deals on viagra?

[Vi*]

I recently heard about a group of spambots that outsourced their captcha-reading to real humans by creating a porn site with captcha-required entrance. They would just copy over the captchas, get the answer from horny men, and then use them on the original. I think this is so brilliant that I don't mind spambots nowadays.

[protest boy]

Did you read my suggestion in one of the Viagra threads before it was deleted?

If you add a simple question that the user has to answer upon registration, it will stop automated bot registration cold. Many bots can get through e-mail verification.

Add a simple question like: "Fill in the blank: This game is called ______"

Unless someone customizes a bot just for this forum (highly unlikely) it will take care of the problem.

I know phpBB has a modification for this, not sure about vbulletin.

[Karl]

vbulletin doesnt allow both captcha and question... you get one or the other.

[Karl]

anyways...

captcha has been switched to recaptcha.

email verification is now on.

Your first 5 posts are scanned for spam by http://antispam.typepad.com/

hopefully this will do the trick.

[nesnl]

Originally Posted by Vi*

I recently heard about a group of spambots that outsourced their captcha-reading to real humans by creating a porn site with captcha-required entrance. They would just copy over the captchas, get the answer from horny men, and then use them on the original. I think this is so brilliant that I don't mind spambots nowadays.

Why do you assume it's men and not women?

[Karl]

do to their annoying and obnoxious nature i have also disabled signatures.

[Triped]

Originally Posted by Karl

do to their annoying and obnoxious nature i have also disabled signatures.

Thanks, Karl.

[DiogenesDog]

I don't care about the bots, but I love that that guy with the freaking yellow/orange text can no longer have his horrible sig.

[PBS]

Easiest thing to do is add a custom question during registration and forget and captcha, email confirm and scan first five.

Question stops the bots, and the email confirm/scanning first five posts keeps the human spammers to a minimum.

[TAYLOOP]

make some mods