Prevent Certain Timezone Registration

[Dismounted]

Prevent Certain Timezone Registration

Description:
This mod prevents certain timezones from registering.

Request:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=134529 & By PM

Installation:
All the installation information is in the package.

Changes:
1 Plugin
7 Phrases

Change Log:
15/06/2011 - Version 1.2
- Fixed Redirect Option

16/09/2007 - Version 1.1
- Added Redirect Option
- Added Admin CP Option Error Checking
- Updated ReadMe Style

9/03/2007 - Version 1.0
- Initial Release

[Dismounted]

/me Reserves

[Bill Bickley]

Thanks! OK, spammers! your turn.

Bill

[Hornstar]

cool to see you have made it, however nothing that a proxy cant get past and then it is just letting potential good members not have access in the future from those time zones. Maybe it will have a use for someone tho.

[Kirk Y]

Just out of curiosity, what's the logic behind disallowing certain time zones from registering?

[Mr Chad]

lol...

why not have it like you can only register to this site during business hours.

9AM to 5PM

[Kirk Y]

That makes more sense to me than disallowing an entire timezone from registering, lol.

[Dismounted]

I dunno, it was a request, I merely fulfilled it :p.

[NathanLedet]

Installed. Thanks a lot for this mod. It's super simple to install, and works wonderfully. I've been getting hit hard by spammers lately who register with a -12:00 timezone and this mod does it's job in telling them to f*** off!

I had to go into the XML document and customize the text that I wanted displayed to the spammer. Maybe the next version you release can have a section to put in a custom message?

THANKS!!

[Fungsten]

That's the only Time Zone I have had problems with. All the Spammers reg from there!!

:up:

[Kirk Y]

Well, all I can say is that I feel sorry for people living in that timezone who want to register...

[Dismounted]

I had to go into the XML document and customize the text that I wanted displayed to the spammer. Maybe the next version you release can have a section to put in a custom message?
You could've just modified the phrase. I made it phrased so people could have a multi-lingual forum.
Well, all I can say is that I feel sorry for people living in that timezone who want to register...
Same here :p.

[Bill Bickley]

Have seen the comments asking why. All I will say is that it works like a charm and solves a big problem with spammers. If you don't have the problem, don't install it. For the rest of us poor souls, thanks for doing this.

Bill

[Swampfox]

Awesome, my forum is local, dont want any members from wherever that is anyway, thanks

[ConqSoft]

All they have to do is choose another timezone.... It doesn't stop them from registering.

[Dismounted]

This is mainly for preventing bots.

[Atakan KOC]

Thanks........

[pmdpmd]

Many thanks for this - my spam problem has virtually disappeared since I installed it. I know it is only a matter of time til the spammers catch up, but for the moment, you are saving me a *whole heap* of time tidying up!

Paul.

[Swampfox]

Same here, since I installed this no bots have registered, Thanks again :)

[ISN]

Can you provide an option to change the default message user gets when they are banned.

[Dismounted]

Just edit the phrase 'invalid_timezone'.

[ddmobley]

If you want to use this on 3.5.x, in line 16 of the XML file, edit:

<plugin active="1" executionorder="5">

to be:
<plugin active="1">

[digitalhome]

Installed. I am getting tons of spammers signing up from -12 so I hope this helps!

Thanks for your efforts dismounted.

[Phaedrus]

Excellent Mod. Easy to use and it seems to stop one specific infamous spammer.

[amagab]

Bloody Awesome! Saves me a bunch of time. Let's hope it takes a long time before they catch up on it.

[joeychgo]

Just edit the phrase 'invalid_timezone'.


I have a suggestion. How about, instead of telling spammers they need to find the right time zone, instead, if they are in the banned time zones, the registration stops and redirects them back to the forumhome page. Keeps the bots in an endless loop.

[Fungsten]

I have a suggestion. How about, instead of telling spammers they need to find the right time zone, instead, if they are in the banned time zones, the registration stops and redirects them back to the forumhome page. Keeps the bots in an endless loop.

:up::eek:

[Dismounted]

As stated by me in other threads, I'm going to start updating my modifications (finally ;)).

Hack Updated!

16/09/2007 - Version 1.1
- Added Redirect Option
- Added Admin CP Option Error Checking
- Updated ReadMe Style

[Fungsten]

That's so mean to do but the spammers have it coming to them. Thanks!

[phunksta]

I have a suggestion. How about, instead of telling spammers they need to find the right time zone, instead, if they are in the banned time zones, the registration stops and redirects them back to the forumhome page. Keeps the bots in an endless loop.

Just edit the phrase 'invalid_timezone'.

I had a similar but different strategy when I implemented this hack, I changed the error message to the same message as a successful registration ;)

[Quarterbore]

Installed...

I have been trying to find a complete set of tools to address this problem and I have a post about some of what I have learned here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=158544

I have one site that I was not working on as it was slow and in about 2-3 months time the spam bots killed my small community. I got the site cleaned up but now I am out to learn more about their process to keep them out... I welcome the help!

[TwTom]

Great hack!

[BadgerDog]

I just set it to -12, changed the phrase to "** Thank you for Registering **" and send them back to home page.... :up:

I find that 90% of all my spammers come in from that timezone and don't change it.

Thanks :)

Regards,
Badger

[bobster65]

I just set it to -12, changed the phrase to "** Thank you for Registering **" and send them back to home page.... :up:

I find that 90% of all my spammers come in from that timezone and don't change it.

Thanks :)

Regards,
Badger

lol... same here... have not had one new spammer since.

[comicbrew]

THANK YOU.

This was becoming a major problem on my site. I'm glad to see there were others who walked before me and found a solution!

all my spam came from the same TZ.

sure beats a full manual management! I was physically deleting users daily!

[Allnick]

I just set it to -12, changed the phrase to "** Thank you for Registering **" and send them back to home page.... :up:

I find that 90% of all my spammers come in from that timezone and don't change it.

Thanks :)

Regards,
Badger

I've just installed and done exactly the same.
Hoping to see a marked difference, it was becoming more than a nuisance!

Many thanks Dismounted.
(marked as installed)

[jaybquick]

Looks like an awesome mod. I am using 3.5 and tired of bots.

Can you make this work with 3.5 please? Thanks

[Dismounted]

In the plugins, find all instances of and remove:
executionorder="5"
It should then install on 3.5.x with no issues.

[jaybquick]

In the plugins, find all instances of and remove:
executionorder="5"
It should then install on 3.5.x with no issues.


thanks man, you da man.

[kickabola]

This is great!!! Thanks....this solves my problem.

[trilogy33]

Installed. Thank you.

[logastro]

Is it working with vB v3.7?

[Dismounted]

I don't know. It should work though.

[jkcerda]

Is it working with vB v3.7?

+2 I hope it works

[TMH63]

I just installed the timezone hack. And I want to lock my forums down GOOD! I could care less about any timezone outside the US or Canada, so my question is....... Will entering these as you see them work fine? All the example gives in the software is, Example: 1,3,-2

-12, -11, -4:30, -3, 12, -1, +1, +2, +3, +3:30, +4, +4:30, +5, +5:30, +5:45, +6, +6:30, +7, +8, +9, +9:30, +10, +11, +12



Thanks!

[Dismounted]

I didn't seem to handle half hour zones correctly. For a fix, in the file, find and remove:
foreach (explode(',', $data) AS $timezone)
{
if (intval($timezone) == 0)
{
return false;
}
}
And use -12.5, -4.5, etc.

[Ohiosweetheart]

I'm going to give this a try on one of my sites.

[Ohiosweetheart]

Dismounted, is this how I would list the unwanted timezones in that space?
-12,-11,-10,-9,-4,-3,-2,-1,+1,+2,+3,+4,+5,+6,+7,+8,+9,+10,+11,+12Also, I don't know how to list that Western Europe Time, London, Lisbon, Casablanca.

[noppid]

Do you really think this will have any effect? A quick scrap of the forums will give the time zone and they can supply the correct time zone.

Then what about real users that don't want the time zone you limit them too?

This is a new members nightmare. This is worse than making them do capture and recapture.

How does a person with an international forum continue to grow?

I applaud your efforts, but this is just silly. There are better solutions by several people that are transparent to the new member and actually work without creating more work for the new member or limiting them.

[Ohiosweetheart]

This is something that I'd add only to TalkOhio, of course, certainly not to Themes by Design. I don't know if it will work or not. Nothing else is, so we'll see.

[noppid]

This is something that I'd add only to TalkOhio, of course, certainly not to Themes by Design. I don't know if it will work or not. Nothing else is, so we'll see.

You can be stubborn and say nothing works, but that is not true.

There are hundreds of people that fixed this spam issue. Come on, you are smarter than that. :)

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Can you please make some changes to let the user be redirected to a third party site, if I enter the full URL of a third party site, they just receive an error.

[Ohiosweetheart]

You can be stubborn and say nothing works, but that is not true.

There are hundreds of people that fixed this spam issue. Come on, you are smarter than that. :):rolleyes: by "nothing else is", I meant nothing else I've done - so far. You should've known that ;)

[Dismounted]

Do you really think this will have any effect? A quick scrap of the forums will give the time zone and they can supply the correct time zone.

Then what about real users that don't want the time zone you limit them too?

This is a new members nightmare. This is worse than making them do capture and recapture.

How does a person with an international forum continue to grow?

I applaud your efforts, but this is just silly. There are better solutions by several people that are transparent to the new member and actually work without creating more work for the new member or limiting them.
This fills in the niche of some forums - some forums don't need any members apart from their "area", and this is just something that helps with spam on those forums. This modification is certainly not for everyone, and is not made out to be.

[CrossBones]

Does this work with 3.7x?

I have used it on 3.6x and it works perfectly!

[cmmguy]

<font color="Blue">Installed</font> but I created an "Registration Error" page that directs them to email admin if they are having problems. This should let someone from that timezone send me a message and I can let them register.

Problem: The mod does not send them to the Error Page that I created. I can open the page by pasting the link from the settings directly into a browser, so I know the link and page works. I DO NOT have the Error page in the forum folder but in the root of the website - is this the problem or why wont it open the Error page that setup?

v3.7.3

[Dismounted]

Installed but I created an "Registration Error" page that directs them to email admin if they are having problems. This should let someone from that timezone send me a message and I can let them register.

Problem: The mod does not send them to the Error Page that I created. I can open the page by pasting the link from the settings directly into a browser, so I know the link and page works. I DO NOT have the Error page in the forum folder but in the root of the website - is this the problem or why wont it open the Error page that setup?

v3.7.3
Make sure you enter the URL as an absolute link (full link with "http://").
Does this work with 3.7x?

I have used it on 3.6x and it works perfectly!
It should work with 3.7.

[cmmguy]

Make sure you enter the URL as an absolute link (full link with "http://").

It should work with 3.7.

That is exactly how it is entered... the full url.
When i test it, it sends me to the standard error message that you created.

[CrossBones]

Installed on my 3.7x board. Works fine! :D

[Dismounted]

That is exactly how it is entered... the full url.
When i test it, it sends me to the standard error message that you created.
Small bug found, in the XML file, find:
$vbulletin->url = $vbulletin->options['prevent_tz_reg_redirurl'];
Replace With:
$vbulletin->url = $vbulletin->options['prevent_tz_reg_redirect'];
Fixed in next release.

[cmmguy]

That corrected it, thanks much.
I use a redirect form that allows a legitimate but blocked user to be taken to the "Send a message" dialog in vB.

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Small bug found, in the XML file, find:
$vbulletin->url = $vbulletin->options['prevent_tz_reg_redirurl'];
Replace With:
$vbulletin->url = $vbulletin->options['prevent_tz_reg_redirect'];
Fixed in next release.
Thanks, that fixed the redirect issue.

[TheLastSuperman]

Thank you!!!!

Priceless... and to all the past comments about REAL users from certain timezones... well I know if you check out GMT-12 which is my worst one for bots etc THEN you'll see maybe this is quite useful.

Also check out the IsBot mod which has saved me some hassle as well!

[NJI]

This mod works well. However, I have a lot of spammers registering from timezone GMT ( aka 0 ). When I go into this mods options I typed in "-12,0" in to the box, however it says 0 is not a valid number.

[TheLastSuperman]

Hmmm... try -0 perhaps? Just a thought but also use the search box above and type in IsBot as I mentioned above... I use this mod which is great and IsBot and have only had to delete a few bots since I installed them both about 2 months ago :D

S-MAN

[mustangempire]

works great!!! I love it thanks for this mod. I can block those annoying spammers.

[pigpog]

Thanks Dismounted :up:, I've been plagued by -12.00 GMT bots in the last two days, but have now banned this time zone. Thanks for this mod, I hope this works.... :confused:

[CrazyCanuck]

Marked as installed!!!

Ok I usually get anywhere between 10-20 registrations a day and I can usually jump in at anytime to find at least a couple new registrations and since I installed this about 4 hours ago not one new registration from the -12 timezone.

Great little hack

I have also implemented the Question and Answer Verification instead of captcha and added the "Check4SPAM" hack.

Not to mention added viagra and few other names to the Illegal User Names field.

I think my next step will be to remove the option to change the timezone from the registration page and legitimate users can simply change it in their profiles.

I think that's a little too much work just to stop the spammers/bots but when having a licensed script it's necessary steps.

Thanks again for this

[Swampfox]

Anyone worried about legitimate users from GMT-12......

Its uninhabited!!

The bots select it because it is the first option in the dropdown menu

Almost 2 years later, I have not had a bot register, this is the best anti bot mod ever, it adds no hoops for legitimate members to jump through, and it keeps the bots out entirely until they change this fatal flaw in their programming.

[Swampfox]

Well I guess that last post jinxed me lol

One of my sites has seen a sudden influx of bots registering with various time zones :(

[CrossBones]

Well I guess that last post jinxed me lol

One of my sites has seen a sudden influx of bots registering with various time zones :(I'[ve been using this mod for a long time and it's worked great. Unfortunately lately it seems the bots have figured it out. I'm getting all sorts of weird time zone registrants the lasts three weeks. +sigh+

[bobster65]

I'm getting all sorts of weird registrants the lasts three weeks. +sigh+

You run an Oakland Raiders Web site, what do you expect :D

and ya, it seems like they found a work around for this.. bummer, cause it sure did work great for awhile there for both our sites..

[CrossBones]

Yo Bobster...:D

[SVTCobraLTD]

Installed. Didn't have a problem until I changed my image setting to not have random shapes and slants. After that I got new spam members everyday.

[len backus]

220.250.18.139

I just finished reading all the way down to your post to find this mod MIGHT not be effective any more. Are others finding this true also? I was about to install it.

[trilogy33]

Worked a treat on 3.8.x
We're a UK board, so anything other than GMT was bounced off, thankfully :)
Can this be ported for version 4.x please?

[revitclinic]

does it work for vBulletin 4 too?

[BadgerDog]

Anyone know if this works in v4?

Thanks :)

Regards,
Badger

[trilogy33]

Tested in vB4.0.2 PL4 - the hack itself works and displays:

Redirecting...

You have selected a banned timezone!

But this optional setting in ACP doesn't work...

Redirect User?
Enter the URL of which a user should be redirected to if they choose a banned timezone. Leave blank to display error page.

It merely gets ignored, at least that's what I've found under test conditions.
Hope this helps :)

[BadgerDog]

Tested in vB4.0.2 PL4 - the hack itself works and displays:

Redirecting...

You have selected a banned timezone!

But this optional setting in ACP doesn't work...

Redirect User?
Enter the URL of which a user should be redirected to if they choose a banned timezone. Leave blank to display error page.

It merely gets ignored, at least that's what I've found under test conditions.
Hope this helps :)

Thanks ... :up:

Regards,
Badger

[Gomojoe]

Seems to work alright for me with 4.1.1, except that timezone 3 seems to still get through and I am not sure how to do timezone 0 or GMT.

[Dismounted]

But this optional setting in ACP doesn't work...
Try the newly uploaded version 1.2. :)

[K4GAP]

It works for me on 4.1.5

I know for certain that I went from approx 15 registrations from russian i.p.'s almost every day down to zero!!

I mean really, why would a man need all that viagra?

[SVTCobraLTD]

I have been getting hammered everyday with multiple registrations. I have most timezones banned except USA ones. However, I cannot seem to ban GMT. I tried 0, tried +0, nothing seems to work. What am I doing wrong?

[scruff2]

This is an awesome MOD that worked great for me with 3.8.x, but does it work on 4.1.11?

If not, can we make it so? I'm now getting spammers no matter what and this really did the trick for me as I only want North American, Canada, Mexico, USA, Puerto Rico, etc. time zones.

[Artes_Marciales]

Nice mod!

[Hawk7173]

works on 4.2.5

only problem is that it won't take time zones like +5:30. That and the default message tells them indirectly to just choose another time zone.