Check4SPAM - Advanced SPAM Search & Destroy!

[woostar]

This project is closed. I do not give persmission for anyone to continue it or use any of the code contained in it.

[Forum Lover]

Is it 3.7 friendly?

[woostar]

I've tested it on 3.7 beta 4, but would guess that it will work on 3.7 gold. Upgrading my test board in a few days and will test on beta 6 then.

[Rideharder]

Nice .. I will need this on my site.. Thanks!!!!

vBulletin? v3.6.8
http://speedaholic.net

[saviola8x]

Thanks . good job

[PoetJA-1975]

Nice share - will take a look a little later!
Thanx,

Jacquii.

[stelthius]

Thank you very usefull mod indeed :)

[projectego]

Thank you very much! :D

[SuperTaz]

I'll wait till it is out of beta stage. But great mod anyways.

[woostar]

Updated!

Now includes a URL safe list & improved URL detector.

Enjoy!

[cfish]

Installed, nice and easy, great options - thank you!

[cfish]

OK, this works very well but... what I discovered is that when a spammer can't add links to a post, they add them to their signature instead!

Could this be added as an option? Users less than X posts cannot have links in their posts AND cannot have links in their signatures. Then it really would be bomb-proof.

[woostar]

is do'able :)
because I orginally wrote this for my forum (and don't allow newbies signatures via usergroup promotions) that was never a problem. Leave it with me and I'll see what I can do.

Should be as simple as just finding the right hook.

[cfish]

is do'able :)
because I orginally wrote this for my forum (and don't allow newbies signatures via usergroup promotions) that was never a problem.

Actually, now that you mention it, the usergroup promotions method seems a better way forward. Thanks for the tip.

One improvement you could still make is to add a link back to this thread on the product title in the list of installed products from the control panel. I like to use that fot checking for updates.

[woostar]

Good idea. I have some more ideas for the mod so will add that on the next update. For the time being if you want to do it manually:-

Goto 'Plugins & Products' > 'Manage Products'
Select 'Edit', next to Check4SPAM - SPAM detector
and paste: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?p=1470652 into 'Product URL' and save.

[KuJoe]

It says it currently doesn't stop spammers from posting images... can't you just add img to the SPAM Keywords list or does it not read BBCode like that?

[woostar]

That's an advantage (not all webmasters want to block images) if you want to stop all newbies form posting pictures then you can just add '[img|' to the beginning of URL identifiers or '[url]' (without ' ') to the SPAM keywords (if you just want moderate them). For instances on my forum I allow images (and will do until unless spammers start targetting with images).

BTW I've made a little change to the URL identifiers (because someone managed to sneak one through lastnight by putting domain {.} com)

[url|www .|www. |w-w-w|w.w.w|.html|.htm|.shtml|.php|.asp|.cgi|(dot)|[dot]|{dot}|(.)|[.]|{.}|.com |.net |.org |.info |.co.uk |.com/ |.net/ |.org/ |.info/ |co.uk/ | . com | . net | . org | . co.uk | . info |.com.|.net.|.org.|.info.|co.uk.

[Noctavia]

Excellent mod, thankyou very much.

Is there a way to alter what the post looks like when it tells you what the post in question is? Like take the bold off the [URL Attempt] User received an error - No action required! message, add in the user name of the poster etc? I tried to find it under templates but couldn't see anything for the mod...

[woostar]

The only reason why it has the [URL Attempt] in red is because it's actually a link to where they tried to post the link. As for the posters name; the actual post is in the posters name.

I'll see if I can add some extra options in the new version.

[woostar]

by the way I've noticed 2 tiny little bugs in this version (that are easily fixable before I release the new version).


I had someone type "Awwwwwwwww." on my forum the other day and it got flagged (because off the 'www. ' identifier).
I also had some type (.)(.) which is the forum slang for boobs (which flagged the '(.)' identifier).


To get around these update your URL identifiers to:
[url|www .|w-w-w|w.w.w|.html|.htm|.shtml|.php|.asp|.cgi|(dot)|[dot]|{dot}|(.) |[.]|{.}|.com |.net |.org |.info |.co.uk |.com/ |.net/ |.org/ |.info/ |co.uk/ | . com | . net | . org | . co.uk | . info |.com.|.net.|.org.|.info.|co.uk.

[Noctavia]

Quick question - is anyone else having issues with the safe list? Doesn't seem to be working for me.

Also I noticed that if people are over the post count, they are able to post a link, but their threads are being flagged as needing approval before showing...

[woostar]

is anyone else having issues with the safe list? Doesn't seem to be working for me.
I've just retried as many different variations of URL's (as I can think of) but all seem to work.


Also I noticed that if people are over the post count, they are able to post a link, but their threads are being flagged as needing approval before showing...

'Approval posts' are keyword based. If they have over the required post count it can only be something in your permanent keyword list.

If you PM me your 'Permanently Moderated Keywords' list and a post that got flagged I'll test it myself.

[Noctavia]

I don't have anything in my keyword list.

I noticed also too this morning - someone with under 10 posts, posted a reply with the quote to who they were referring to. The quote had a link in it, not their reply, and their reply got stopped.

With my URL safelist - there are sites listed there as OK, yet people with under 10 posts using them are still being caught out.

Also - would it be possible to have it so that the user must have 10 posts OR be a member for longer than 30 days? Spammers tend to hit you up straight away, where as I get members that register to make use of the search feature, download attachments etc and may not post right away. Then they ask a question 2 months later and are getting caught out and are being put off from asking when getting stopped.

[Noctavia]

With my URL safelist - there are sites listed there as OK, yet people with under 10 posts using them are still being caught out.

Just to follow up on this part. I have armory.worldofwarcraft.com in my "safelist" of URL's, yet a member with under 10 posts just posted a reply with a link containing that and it got put into the moderation queue. So his post effectively didn't show. I had to approve it.

Even my moderator got caught out by it and his post had to be approved. And I have the setting for not affecting groups set to admins, mods and super mods.

[woostar]

ok there's wierd. have no idea why you would have any problems (I have exactly the same version running on my forum).

try just 'worldofwarcraft.com' instead of 'armory.worldofwarcraft.com'.

I have a new version which will be released soon (with some new functions) and has been slightly rewritten, so maybe it should sort out any problems.

[Noctavia]

This is the list of safe URL's currently listed:

curse.com
elitistjerks.com
leuliers.com
mmo-champion.com
worldofwarcraft.com
wowarmory.com
armory.worldofwarcraft.com
eu.wowarmory.com
wowace.com
wowdb.com
wowhead.com
wowmb.net
wowwiki.com

The bolded ones are basically all the same thing, except you have US and Euro versions etc.

This mod is exactly what I want and has been wonderful at catching real spammers so far - it's just seeming to be catching out a lot of genuine posters too. Sometimes their post gets completely stopped, sometimes just added to the moderation queue... I'm still trying to figure out the differences on why it goes one or the other - haven't seen any obvious reasons yet.

*edit* Oh yes, and I found it amusing I had to include my own URL haha. When people were copy + pasting user names, it adds in the link with it... and it was catching people out lol.

[woostar]

*edit* Oh yes, and I found it amusing I had to include my own URL haha. When people were copy + pasting user names, it adds in the link with it... and it was catching people out lol.

is sorted in the new version (or should be - still testing).

[Noctavia]

Cool look forward to it.

On the plus side, just makes my day having a spammer register, attempt to post RIGHT as I'm sitting down to check my emails. Banned before he could even finish posting the second thread! LOVE IT!

Ok, just had 3 posts in the moderation queue that I had to look at.

First one:
Poster has 10 posts (which is fine because I dropped the required amount needed to 5) and posted this link: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Aman%27Thul&n=Arkzar

wowarmory.com is on my safe list. This didn't give him the error message that he couldn't post a link, but instead put his post in the moderation queue. User is also a member of the usergroup listed in the "do not apply" section.

Second one:
User had 4 posts (so under the 5 needed) and posted this link: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Wildhammer&n=Angkana

Again, wowarmory.com is on my safe list and like above allowed him to post it, but just put his post in the moderation queue. Also a member of the same group as above which is under the "do not apply" section.

Third one:
User has 82 posts, but posts a link that starts with "armory.wow-europe.com" which isn't on my safe list. It doesn't give him the error message, but instead places his post in the moderation queue. User's group is also added to the "don't apply" section.

This third one shouldn't have been affected at all should it?

[Noctavia]

*Update*

Just had another thread be put in the moderation queue. User has 292 posts, is a member of one of the "ignore this usergroup" groups and posted a thread containing two links - both of which are on the safe list. My site (wowmb) and eu.wowarmory.com.

BTW, not complaining, just hoping to help find the cause and fix/stop it. :)

[Noctavia]

I've had to disable this mod as it's putting any post with a link on the "ok list" in the moderation queue. Causing a lot of confusion and stuff ups with a couple of 'share your character' type threads...

[AtoZ]

This mod is one of the most valuable mods I've ever installed. We are down to almost zero spam making it onto the forum. I have it set up to post URL attempts in a hidden forum and have that forum set up to notify me by email so I can easily monitor spam activity. The very few that have gotten past the URL stopper get sent to moderation by the keyword filter. This mod is very flexible and has saved me tons of time.

THANK YOU!

[Gerald_D]

A spammer today registered and posted a moderated post full of links, bypassing the spam trap . . . .

1. Can Check4Spam be made to apply even for "moderated" posts?

2. How does a first-time poster manage to mark his post as moderated?

[AtoZ]

A spammer today registered and posted a moderated post full of links, bypassing the spam trap . . . .

1. Can Check4Spam be made to apply even for "moderated" posts?

2. How does a first-time poster manage to mark his post as moderated?

I am unclear whether or not you have this installed or you are wondering if it will help you. Check4Spam places posts on moderation automatically when the filter is triggered. The triggers are keywords or url identifiers.

[Gerald_D]

Hi AtoZ, thanks for the reply

My mistake! That was the first time that I had seen a post marked as "moderated" and I did not realise that was the way in which was marked "for moderation" or "to be moderated" (by check4spam). I was under the impression that the poster himself had already given his post an "approved" status. So, check4spam worked correctly in that case.

However . . . .

My regular spammers normally make 5 posts with links in them. So I set check4spam to dis-allow newbies from making links in their first 6 posts. Immediately the regular spammers now move up to making 10 posts . . . . the first 6 get blocked, but the next 4 get through. How would I overcome this issue?

Could we have spammer's post moved into moderation after making 5 posts with links?

[woostar]

Project Closed!