StopForumSpam Works!

It's a simple phrase modification, and it's around somewhere on either vBulletin.org or .com. I cannot find it though.

Just do some searching and it'll come up.

 

I installed this one that uses Botscout
ragtek Botscout Register Check - vBulletin.org Forum

 

Well for the first time today, a legitimate user was blocked from registering. I had to manually create his account.

We'll see how often this happens. I may have to reduce the cache time for IP recycling...

 

I've had it a little over a month and it's stopped over 500 spammers so far...the couple that have slipped through have been stopped by the other mod I have installed, Stop the Registration Bots - vBulletin.org Forum

 

It's been six days and so far over 450 registrations have been blocked.

 

When someone goes to register, does Stop Forum Spam check the data before image verification or ReCaptcha? If it does, then part of those blocked bots might have been caught by something else.

 

It doesn't matter when it catches it, the logs that Nick is looking at only shows what has been blocked by StopForumSpam, not any other method. So whether it stops it when they start typing or when they make a new thread, it only counts the blocks that SFS stops.

 

It matters to me.

Lets say that 50 bots try to register in 24 hours. 45 were blocked by recaptcha or image verification, 5 slipped through.

Install "Stop Forum Spam" (SFS) - which might block the bots before the register. SFS is logging 49 blocked bots, 1 slipped through.

In all reality, SFS only blocked 4 because ReCaptcha blocked the other 45.

Because there are no log files as to how many bots were blocked by image verification and ReCaptcha, it "looks" like SPS is blocking a lot of bots.

Might be giving too much credit to SFS. The other security features would have blocked some of those anyway. But there are no log files to prove it.

Is SFS effective at blocking bots - it seems that it is very effective. But it "only" blocks the bots listed at the Stop Forum Spam website. If the bot is not listed there, then SFS will not be effective.

This should be another layer of security that forum owners add to their site.

 

Kevin, do you have SFS installed? It puts a link in the admin cp to show you how many times SFS blocks the bots. Not recaptcha. Not email verification. Not your grandma. SFS. So if it shows 500, chances are, it is.

 

Usually detected by:
Result on field ip - 212.235.107.87 - Spammer and rejected by policy
Result on field username - GarvardDaniels - Spammer and rejected by policy
Result on field email - xd8850 [at]gmail[dot]com - Spammer and rejected by policy

Our of ALL of the blocked, only a couple were stopped by recaptcha.

 

I have it installed and it helped me tremendously!

The only thing I've had problems with are certain usernames. Some normal names are in the database, but it tells the member that they are a spammer and the member ends up emailing me. I have them register under another name and then change it.

It's wonderful!

 

Since you quoted me LOL...before I installed SFS I was having a huge problem with spammers (and lots of them) getting past what I already had installed, since I installed it not a single one has gotten past...that right there is enough for it to be effective and worth installing for me no matter what numbers are crunched, but I would say about half of those 500 or so were stopped by what I had previously, the rest were getting through lol

 

Really, you're just being pretty petty now. It works. I don't see what the big hub-bub is about.

 

StopForumSpam has been around for SMF as a mod for almost a year now, and people seems to be happy for it.

 

Yes, I have SFS installed.

I am going to guess that SFS filters new members before they get to the other security measures.

 

Yes, that is correct.

I just did a test registration. I used the username of a spammer from the SFS database, and I also incorrectly filled in the reCaptcha code. When I submitted the registration, I got the SFS error message.

 

/me has only been suggesting this since he joined >_>

It is indeed quite awesome. This is in addition to 200 banned directly from gawab.com and mail.ru

 

SFS was installed on 10-28-2009. As of 11-02-2009 at 12:03:48, the script has blocked 714 attempts to register.

 

I run my own personal mod - a simple "click the right image to register"- mod. That kept bots from registering in +15 of my SMF forums.

I really believe that individual protection is the way to fight spammers. That's the reason I wouldn't use recaptcha.
The next most important way to fight spammers, is when they finally got in anyway. You can't prevent human spammers to get access anyway.

 

I had to disable the "username check" because too many legitimate members were being flagged as spammers just because of their username. (If a spammer named "John" is in the database, then a user cannot register with the username "John", which is a big problem IMO).