Spam Bots & phpBB3?

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stephy7013
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Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 1:46 am

Re: Spam Bots & phpBB3?

Post by stephy7013 »

Just a question...
I see something called yahoo_bot on the site browsing. I have no idea why its theer I never saw it before with my old style do I need to be worried? Can I make it go away?

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COD3M4ST3R-X
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Re: Spam Bots & phpBB3?

Post by COD3M4ST3R-X »

stephy7013 wrote:Just a question...
I see something called yahoo_bot on the site browsing. I have no idea why its theer I never saw it before with my old style do I need to be worried? Can I make it go away?
Well its not a problem.you wont have to worry.Such bots are mostly used by search engines,etc to update their database. :D
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Long Live PhpBB!

stephy7013
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Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 1:46 am

Re: Spam Bots & phpBB3?

Post by stephy7013 »

COD3M4ST3R-X wrote:
stephy7013 wrote:Just a question...
I see something called yahoo_bot on the site browsing. I have no idea why its theer I never saw it before with my old style do I need to be worried? Can I make it go away?
Well its not a problem.you wont have to worry.Such bots are mostly used by search engines,etc to update their database. :D
Yay! I was scared!

kevb8ll
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Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 12:13 pm

Re: Spam Bots & phpBB3?

Post by kevb8ll »

I'm getting the same problem since upgrading to 3.04. Just had 26 in the last hour!!

I have captcha enabled, with maximum noise. I also have admin activication.

I think these aren't bots, but human spammers.

Is there a mod which looks for random alpha-numeric usernames, that might help.

Other people's thoughts about them being possibly human? I just can't see how a bot would break captcha.

dicks
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Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 1:27 pm

Re: Spam Bots & phpBB3?

Post by dicks »

@all: To spop spam registrations install the following two mods and you can safely disable the captcha (I'm not joking, we've had NO spam registrations and no captcha at registration).

The two are simple to include, just a few lines of code need changed. The +12 one blocks all bots that register with the default timezone (+12 GMT which is Baker Island - nobody lives there). The second one is more nasty (for the spam bots), it changes the "Accept" variable when you try to register. This is normally a default value which auto registration bots know and as such bypass easily. Change it to some custom word (e.g. a random password) and you'll stop bot registrations right there.

Now to guest posting, we have also seen a massive increase in guest spamming - we had to turn off guest posting. I will try the AntiBotQuestion, with that and the two above you should be a happy camper again.

Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers!

DickS
Last edited by camm15h on Thu Feb 05, 2009 2:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Unfortunately we cannot host MODs for you here at area51 as they are not approved, feel free to host them elsewhere (as in your own server) etc.

dicks
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Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 1:27 pm

Re: Spam Bots & phpBB3?

Post by dicks »

@comment: OK ;)

Links to phpbb.com where you can download the mods:

Baker Island mod: http://www.phpbb.com/index.php?f=70&t=776345

AntiBotRegistration mod: http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... 9&t=874805

Note phbpp.com is down at the moment.

asorrelt
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Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 12:45 pm

Re: Spam Bots & phpBB3?

Post by asorrelt »

Pit$Bull wrote:Try this approved MOD, works for me. :D

I've installed this MOD, but for some reason it's only showing up in my ACP, not on my registration page. Do you have any idea why this might be happening? I've done the MOD twice and uploaded it twice. I've even purged the cache, but it's still not showing up on the dang registration page. Could it have something to do with the template I'm using?

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ChrisRLG
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Re: Spam Bots & phpBB3?

Post by ChrisRLG »

can we move this one to this topic.

viewtopic.php?f=71&t=30531

They are the same subject and we dont need two (or more) topics on the same subject.

Locking.

Locked