Author Topic: Guest posting disabled  (Read 9073 times)

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Offline Megiddo

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Guest posting disabled
« on: November 26, 2008, 09:16:33 AM »
Due to the high volume of spam we've had over the past few weeks, I have disabled the ability for guests to post. Sorry guys, I know it's a bother to have to register in order to post, but it's also annoying to be getting 2-3 spam topics on the forums every time we look, especially when a few of them are indecent.

Yes, we were using CAPTCHA. Either it's easy to break or there's some flaw in it because it's been working fine for months and suddenly broke a couple weeks ago. There's no other CAPTCHA mod for SMF that I know of at the moment, so this is just the way it's got to be.
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Offline JamminR

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Re: Guest posting disabled
« Reply #1 on: November 26, 2008, 04:06:10 PM »
One of my favorite geek news sites has had more and more stories lately about broken CAPTCHAs including those of Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft mail. :(
Design a better anti-spam system, and the spammers will design a better spam bot.
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Offline teddddd

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Re: Guest posting disabled
« Reply #2 on: December 31, 2008, 02:55:33 PM »
Hey guys,
I run an SMF forum too and I have also been noticing frequent spambots. I have found this plugin to be successful:
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1516

I had gone as far to make all new members solve a capcha AND click a link in the email. The spambots were able to solve it. :/

This mod allows you to have a few of your own antispam questions. You create them yourself, so there's no way a non-human can get past it. The questions I use are incredible simple. (Opposite of up is:)

If you have any moar problems, use that plugin.

Offline Megiddo

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Re: Guest posting disabled
« Reply #3 on: December 31, 2008, 03:44:53 PM »
Thanks for the tip teddddd!
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Offline atomicspark

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Re: Guest posting disabled
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2009, 04:54:10 PM »
CAPTCHA failed. It's way too easy to break now. Sorry buddy.

Offline HOLOGRAPHICpizza

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Re: Guest posting disabled
« Reply #5 on: January 14, 2009, 08:40:17 AM »
What about getting asked a random question such as "The opposite of up is: Pizza Quack Taco Down", or "Click on the picture of the watermelon.", or "Bombs tend to: Explode Drown Fall Sprint", or "What is this a picture of?". It should take spam bots quite a while to get sophisticated enough to solve that.
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Offline JamminR

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Re: Guest posting disabled
« Reply #6 on: January 14, 2009, 02:12:15 PM »
"Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained." -- The Tao of Programming