[RFC] stop distributing worthless CAPTCHAS in 3.1

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Publish your own request for comments/change or patches for the next version of phpBB. Discuss the contributions and proposals of others. Upcoming releases are 3.2/Rhea and 3.3.
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Dog Cow
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Re: [RFC] stop distributing worthless CAPTCHAS in 3.1

Post by Dog Cow »

As far as a general-purpose solution, yours is probably best since it probably wouldn't require retraining for each target site, as mine would.

However, I have a suspicion that most sites using Q&A have only one question, and once you've got the answer to that question... it's bombs away.

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A_Jelly_Doughnut
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Re: [RFC] stop distributing worthless CAPTCHAS in 3.1

Post by A_Jelly_Doughnut »

The image CAPTCHAs included in phpBB are not "worthless".

There are a wide variety of spam tools out there, and they are constantly evolving. But when the "cube" captcha from phpBB3 was first broken a couple of years ago, it was successfully solved only about 25% of the time. I would guess that now that number is in the 50% range.

Even the 10 year old phpBB2 "grayscale" captcha is 39% effective against some modern spam tools.

Would an installer step to set up a captcha be a bad idea? No, not at all. But it is better to include some default image-based captcha otherwise.
A_Jelly_Doughnut

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Pony99CA
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Re: [RFC] stop distributing worthless CAPTCHAS in 3.1

Post by Pony99CA »

Perhaps, and that's one reason that I proposed keeping ReCAPTCHA. Google at least seems to be actively maintaining it.

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Re: [RFC] stop distributing worthless CAPTCHAS in 3.1

Post by Oleg »

Please write suitable UI to configure Q&A captcha during installation, then we'll set it as default and the problem will be solved.

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Ger
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Re: [RFC] stop distributing worthless CAPTCHAS in 3.1

Post by Ger »

In this regard: .com thread: hammered by newly registered members
Not that I have a better solution than the current countermeasures, but it might be good the keep thinking about that.
Last edited by MichaelC on Sat Nov 17, 2012 12:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Fixed unclosed URL tag
Above message may contain errors in grammar, spelling or wrongly chosen words. This is because I'm not a native speaker. My apologies in advance.

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Pony99CA
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Re: [RFC] stop distributing worthless CAPTCHAS in 3.1

Post by Pony99CA »

Ger wrote:In this regard: .com thread: hammered by newly registered members
Not that I have a better solution than the current countermeasures, but it might be good the keep thinking about that.
NOTE: Fixed broken link due to unclosed URL tag.

It sounds like Xrumer now has a database of phpBB Q&As. If they aren't actually parsing the question and calculating the answer, that makes my randomly-generated Q&A per registration suggestion even better. Xrumer would add the question to their database, but that exact question would be unlikely to come up on many boards.

Even with a great static question, once it got added to the database, the bots would have free run of your board until you noticed it and came up with a new question.

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keith10456
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Re: [RFC] stop distributing worthless CAPTCHAS in 3.1

Post by keith10456 »

Just thought I would share this link... It's a different way of defeating bots (using games):

http://areyouahuman.com

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brunoais
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Re: [RFC] stop distributing worthless CAPTCHAS in 3.1

Post by brunoais »

Hum... It relies on js and, for the sounds, it relies on flash player... I think it will be rejected...

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MichaelC
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Re: [RFC] stop distributing worthless CAPTCHAS in 3.1

Post by MichaelC »

brunoais wrote:Hum... It relies on js and, for the sounds, it relies on flash player... I think it will be rejected...
JS is fine, flash player certianly not.
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Jessica.
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Re: [RFC] stop distributing worthless CAPTCHAS in 3.1

Post by Jessica. »

keith10456 wrote:Just thought I would share this link... It's a different way of defeating bots (using games):

http://areyouahuman.com
This is what I use. It's really good.

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