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 Fighting Spam on PHP-based forums: (currently 698 views) |
| gentlemike2 |
| Posted on: Saturday, August 25th, 2007, 8:29pm |
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Posts: 4
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Hello all,
Glad I found this board.
For just over a year now, I have been administering a php-based forum website (similar to this one, but different subject matter). I have had a great deal of trouble with spammers trying to join my forums. To date, not a single spam post has been posted on my boards, but at the cost of a great deal of my time.
I have been learning and trying different techniques to prevent bogus registrations and discourage the spammers. Currently, I have registrations down to one or two a day, and most of those are not getting written to my database, but are rejected according to criteria I have set up. Spammers get a polite error message when their registrations are rejected. I was getting over 400 registrations a month.
I scanned many of the topics on this board, and I didn't see any that deal with the spam attacks that happen to forums and contact forms on websites such as mine.
It would be nice to have a place to discuss spamming on php-based forums, but at the same time I am sure spammers read boards like this and adjust their tactics to exploit weaknesses in the defenses we outline here. I have been contemplating a setting up a site for people like me and make it a sort of invitation only type of thing. My research shows that I am clearly not the only forum administrator that is fighting this battle. It will be several months before I am ready to make a move like that, if I decide to do it.
In the mean time, is anyone else here fighting the same battle? Has anyone had any success at deflecting some of the spammer traffic?
Here is one of the best things I did to help me figure out what is going on --- I modified the code in my forums to write a log file that records all the IP addresses, the user agent info, requested uri info, and submitted user name/e-mail info on each new registration. This helps me see what e-mail addresses are connected to which IP addresses and the like. This has helped me set up my reject criteria. I can share the script for the logging and help anyone set it up in their own forums. I also have a simple script that displays the contents of the log file.
I'd also really enjoy any critique of my scripts, suggestions, or ideas to help.
I am writing a content management system in php which will have built-in anti-spam mechanisms. I am hoping to have this ready for beta by the first of the year (January 2008 ).
Looking forward to hearing what you all have to say about this.
-Gentlemike2 |
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| spamislame |
| Posted on: Monday, August 27th, 2007, 3:59pm |
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Posts: 66
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Hey there.
You may want to get in touch with KyferEz over here:
http://thecarpcstore.com/phpbb2/index.php
He has also come up with numerous *very* successful means of securing and hardening phpbb. He's also in touch with a few contributors to the phpbb project.
As I write this, that forum is under attack (we apparently have the desired effect on spammers. Makes them mad.) But whenever it's back up you can join and contact him there.
PM me if you want further info. I'd certainly be interested in seeing some of your code.
SiL |
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| Karlston |
| Posted on: Monday, August 27th, 2007, 5:26pm |
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Posts: 1
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As I write this, that forum is under attack (we apparently have the desired effect on spammers. Makes them mad.) But whenever it's back up you can join and contact him there. |
Ah, so that's why thecarpcstore forums are down... the spammers have spat their dummy again and are throwing another childish temper tantrum at the site.  
Thanks SiL...
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Reply: 2 - 6 |
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| Meep |
| Posted on: Wednesday, August 29th, 2007, 8:54am |
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New Member 
Posts: 6
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And now Castlecops is under attack and current inaccessible as I post this, so Kill Spammerz users cannot post there either. This just brings more attention to anti-spam movement and it will not work in favour of the spammers.  |
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Reply: 3 - 6 |
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| roberto7888 |
| Posted on: Wednesday, August 29th, 2007, 12:08pm |
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New Member 
Posts: 2
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And now Castlecops is under attack and current inaccessible as I post this, so Kill Spammerz users cannot post there either. This just brings more attention to anti-spam movement and it will not work in favour of the spammers. |
Castlecops Forums are back up and running.
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Reply: 4 - 6 |
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| gentlemike2 |
| Posted on: Friday, August 31st, 2007, 5:53pm |
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Posts: 4
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Castlecops is a great site.
Any word on carpcstore.com? I have tried their site several times and my browser can't find anything. |
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Reply: 5 - 6 |
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| MarkGiles |
| Posted on: Saturday, September 1st, 2007, 3:54am |
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Posts: 363
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Reply: 6 - 6 |
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