Stop Forum Spam

[King Kovifor]

Purpose

The purpose of the Stop Forum Spam database integration is to add an effective way to reduce the amount of Spammer registrations on your forum.

Limitations

As of v1.0.0, the modification only works with new registrations. A later update will allow submission of previously registered users as well as integration with moderator controls and user profiles. Also, the modification will eventually have the ability to have more actions besides rejection of the registration.

Installation

Installation includes the uploading of 1 file as well as installing 1 product through the Administrators Control Panel.

Upload class_sfs.php to your forum's /includes directory.
Install product_kk_sfs_integration.xml through the ACP (ACP -> Plugins & Products -> Manage Products -> [Add/Import Product]
Modify the tolerance level, if desired. This can be found under the registration options.
Enjoy

Default Tolerance Level

By default, the tolerance level is set to 2. Meaning it must match at least 2 out of 3 fields (Username, IP, and Email) to be rejected. If it only matches 1 field, it will be permitted to go through.

Release History
v1.0.0 -3/28/2010

[majazi]

Cool

[your24hourstore]

I will give it a shot installed installed quick seems to simple to work but found the option in registration options set to default 2

[Dr.osamA]

reserved for after update

thanxxx man

[King Kovifor]

I will give it a shot installed installed quick seems to simple to work but found the option in registration options set to default 2

Too simple to work?

[djbaxter]

How is this different from https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=230921?

[Kolbi]

Perhaps it?s really good against xrumer :)

[djbaxter]

What or who is xrumer?

Added: Oh, okay... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XRumer

[mokonzi]

It seems (from the description, as I have the other mod vbStopForumSpam installed myself) to have the option to allow something through on 1, 2, or 3, and can be any combination of the fields it checks. The other one allows you to disable one or more of the options for forbidding users to come through.

[KURTZ]

so this is an integration of the other hack?

[mokonzi]

I wouldn't say so, I'd suggest it's a completely new one (admittedly I've not looked this over) but built on similar lines.

If the developer works on some of the other features, I'd certainly be interested, as it will have more options that the other mod. Until that time, I'm just gonna tag it. :)

[viarun]

Thanks for this...giving it a whirl. Marked as installed.

Anyone have any experience with this thing on it's "High" setting? Any false positives ? I'll try "Medium" for now.

[King Kovifor]

Yes, this is completely new. My original class had the options to disable checks, but I needed something pronto, do I removed them. The reasons include with my fail method (tolerance level), a user could theoretically cripple the functions of the modification because of disabling two, yet keeping the same medium tolerance, meaning that it will never fail. There is logic I have to sort out before I implement such a feature. I am always open to feature suggestions, especially as I would like a complete solution that is as effective as can be.

Viarun, I have not had any experience about the false positives given by the high setting as it was just coded. The error message does suggest the user contact the administrator through the contact us link. This may be changed by editing the phases.

[firefoxextreme]

Your new mod here works better than the other one, where it actually works according to the criteria, where the other mod even tells me I'm a spammer. this mod all members not actually on the Stop forum spam list can register. The other mod blocked many who were not on the list and I think its a bug in the setting to block registration if the call to Stop forum spam times out even if its set at disabled. Clicked installed and nominated.

[King Kovifor]

I am glad that I could have helped you. :) Hopefully I don't get too many false positives.

[firefoxextreme]

Hopefully not, I also check the ips with The Project honeypot just in case and in a few rare occasions a comment spammer is not on the Stop Forum spam list.

[King Kovifor]

Theoretically, false positives should not occur due to my modification, only if there are false entries within the stop forum spam database.

[firefoxextreme]

Well I think your Mod is dead on, as I have members who are able to join now telling me
that they tried before when I had the other Mod installed, and they were told they were
spammers, so according to all available evidence to me so far, I say it works 100 percent.
I have it set at the default of medium also.

[King Kovifor]

Well that is promising. :) and I am glad that your forum has members returning to register when they had received a false positive.

[Hornstar]

tagged for later use. Looking forward to see what future updates you bring to this :)

[giorgino]

Any log of spam rejected? :)

[King Kovifor]

No. It could be implemented tho.

[deadbolt80]

Where can I find the edit of this mod in my ACP > Settings > Options?

I went down the list 2 times and I still can't find it. I followed the instructions to the T, unless i'm doing something wrong.

EDIT: I found the setting. I wasn't looking in the User Registration section, I thought it'll be like all the mods we install lol.

Ok I normally have to moderate all new registrations to avoid spammers, would this help me not have to moderate or should I continue to moderate anyway? Also, when you say "match 2 criteria," what does it match it against? email endings? IP?

A little explanation will really help.

Thank you.

[King Kovifor]

There was no need for a new setting group. You should be able to turn off moderation. And it searches the database using the email, username and IP. If the information is a match, it rejects the registration.

[firefoxextreme]

Not 1 spammer has gotten through with the mod enabled, a big thanks Batman & Robin :D

[King Kovifor]

You thoroughly perplexed me by calling me batman & robin, then I remembered what my avatar was. Lol.

Still looking for feature suggestions! Currently, I am working on a ACP tool that'd allow an administrator with the ability to manage users to search the database for suspect registrations and bring them to the attention of those who ran it for removal (and in the future, the new options for handling registrations). I plan on also integrating this tool into profiles.

[firefoxextreme]

I think a log of rejected registrations would be really cool then I can add them to my access list of ips.

[legacy123]

installed

[Fungsten]

One concern. When I unzipped it it said that it would lose it's encryption. Is that anything to be concerned about? TIA.

On Edit:

Where does the database that matches in reg info come from?

[ScEmH]

Installed. Thank you for making this, bots have been hitting my forum hard lately so hopefully this will help.

In the future could you add admin options that lets us choose specifically what fields to reject by? IE: Matching by just email and IP, or just by IP?

I'm requesting it because rejecting by matching two things won't always work because I have noticed some of the bots that are in that database have the same IP but nothing else. Sure, I could get around that problem by having it only match one field.... But that in itself is very dodgy. With that set it could match by just username and create a ton of false positives, as some of the names bots use are really common.

[King Kovifor]

One concern. When I unzipped it it said that it would lose it's encryption. Is that anything to be concerned about? TIA.

On Edit:

Where does the database that matches in reg info come from?

The database is the Stop Forum Spam (http://www.stopforumspam.com/) database. I have no affiliation with it whatsoever, but it is a place where administrators such as yourself may post spammers that come to your forum. And no, there shouldn't be encryption on the ZIP.

Installed. Thank you for making this, bots have been hitting my forum hard lately so hopefully this will help.

In the future could you add admin options that lets us choose specifically what fields to reject by? IE: Matching by just email and IP, or just by IP?

I'm requesting it because rejecting by matching two things won't always work because I have noticed some of the bots that are in that database have the same IP but nothing else. Sure, I could get around that problem by having it only match one field.... But that in itself is very dodgy. With that set it could match by just username and create a ton of false positives, as some of the names bots use are really common.

As I have explained earlier in this thread, I had plans to do such a thing, but I went for a "tolerance" level setting approach. By introducing on / off switches for checks, it could potentially undermine my original approach, by only setting to match 1 field (say IP) but keeping tolerance at 2. The logic needs to be thought out.

[Jann Hendrik]

Marked as installed.
I hope it will do the job good.
Since I have upgraded to the Suite4.0 I have had a lot of spam registrations - without this addon.

[marshal_ramdev]

thanks .....

[illithid]

This addon looks very promising. I have downloaded it and am about to install it. I was actually looking for something that would check an ip / proxy address against a DNSBL. If more than x amount of black listings came back, then the registering user would be rejected and added to a ban list automatically.

I would still like to find an addon that has that function-ability. I will give this addon a go.

Thanks

[Fungsten]

The database is the Stop Forum Spam (http://www.stopforumspam.com/) database. I have no affiliation with it whatsoever, but it is a place where administrators such as yourself may post spammers that come to your forum. And no, there shouldn't be encryption on the ZIP.




Thank you!

[kfrosty]

Installed. Thanks

How can we tell what users get blocked? I'd like to be able to check the activity and make sure a valid user didn't get blocked on a periodic basis.

[King Kovifor]

Installed. Thanks

How can we tell what users get blocked? I'd like to be able to check the activity and make sure a valid user didn't get blocked on a periodic basis.

As of right now, I have not coded anything that would permit such a feature.

[procard]

I'm a new vbulletin board owner and spammers are driving me crazy. Hope I installed it correctly. Thanks.

[djbaxter]

How can we tell what users get blocked? I'd like to be able to check the activity and make sure a valid user didn't get blocked on a periodic basis.

As of right now, I have not coded anything that would permit such a feature.

This add-on already does what you want: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=230921

[Charlie98902]

I am also getting a lot of real users stating they are spammers so going to install this later this morning and drop the other.

[Boofo]

This add-on already does what you want: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=230921
But, as has been noted above, it does the job too well and stops real users from registering. This product seems a little cleaner and more to the point.

[pant]

Installed this mod as I have been getting hammered by spambot registrations. They weren't however getting onto the board because they weren't confirming their email addresses, will this block that too?

[steven s]

But, as has been noted above, it does the job too well and stops real users from registering. This product seems a little cleaner and more to the point.I am also getting a lot of real users stating they are spammers so going to install this later this morning and drop the other.Is there really a difference between the two mods?
With the other mod, I just check ip and email, not username. I haven't had one person come back to me saying it wouldn't let them register.

[djbaxter]

Is there really a difference between the two mods?
With the other mod, I just check ip and email, not username. I haven't had one person come back to me saying it wouldn't let them register.

Same here. I don't think any legitimate member has been prevented from registering since I dropped the name check.

[Micronichos]

Installed, working great on 4.0.4PL1

[Boofo]

Any word on the proposed updates yet?

[Mr Baldman]

In the last 2 weeks this has been really poor.

it is not catching any spam registrations at all.

is this down to the sfs database? or your plugin?

im going to try other options for now as its pretty dire for me on my forum.

[Boofo]

Uninstalled since it seems that no updates are going to be done.

[Dragonsys]

In the last 2 weeks this has been really poor.

it is not catching any spam registrations at all.

is this down to the sfs database? or your plugin?

im going to try other options for now as its pretty dire for me on my forum.

I'm guessing here, but I think SFS made changes to their API and this mod needs an update.

[djbaxter]

In the last 2 weeks this has been really poor.

it is not catching any spam registrations at all.

is this down to the sfs database? or your plugin?

im going to try other options for now as its pretty dire for me on my forum.

I'm guessing here, but I think SFS made changes to their API and this mod needs an update.

No, it doesn't need an update. It's working fine for me. More likely, "Mr Baldman" was just having issues connecting to the spam database?

[Dragonsys]

No, it doesn't need an update. It's working fine for me. More likely, "Mr Baldman" was just having issues connecting to the spam database?

hmmm interesting, because it stopped working for me last week. I can still use other products which have this function though, so I don't think it is a connection issue.
I was just guessing again...

[djbaxter]

hmmm interesting, because it stopped working for me last week. I can still use other products which have this function though, so I don't think it is a connection issue.
I was just guessing again...

I just checked my logs.

On my forum, so far today, it has blocked 368 attempted registrations for spammers in the database. It has cleared numerous others to register. It had one failed connection to the spammers database and allowed the registration.

Seems to be doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

[Datenpapst]

Well Problem is, that it interfers with the facebook connection addon from vbulletin so I had to deactivate it :(

[Dragonsys]

I just checked my logs.

On my forum, so far today, it has blocked 368 attempted registrations for spammers in the database. It has cleared numerous others to register. It had one failed connection to the spammers database and allowed the registration.

Seems to be doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

What log are you checking?
I am still getting a ton of SPAM registrations every day. This only started about a week or two ago.

[djbaxter]

What log are you checking?
I am still getting a ton of SPAM registrations every day. This only started about a week or two ago.

I'm checking the vBStopForumSpam log at http://wourforum.com/admincp/vbstopforumspam.php.

But remember that the the database only blocks known spammers.

There are new forms of forum spam every day. The latest form has spammers using proxies and usually odd-looking member names and Gmail addresses; they don't post - they just register, add a link to their "home page", and fill the other member fields with keywords.

My member lists are not visible to non-logged in guests or spiders so this strategy is never going to work for these jerks, but nonetheless I started getting a lot of these registrations, beginning around the end of November.

At the time, I was only looking up email addresses. I changed this to check IP addresses as well and started reporting everyone of these morons to the database (all new registrations require admin aproval so they weren't difficult to spot; if you don't use manual activation, look for recent registrations with zero posts). The flow has now dropped off significantly to a few a week instead of several every day.

[rajubd]

best spam manager for vb i loved it. i am using it from the date it released. yesterday i disable it for 1 days 30 spam post.

[BadgerDog]

Installed and testing on 4.04pl1 ... with thanks ... :up:

What sensitivity level is most people using? (Low. Medium, or High)?

Is there a LOG anywhere to show what is happening? ie: rejections etc?

Finally, where is the message presented to registering users if they fail the database check and can I alter it?

Thanks .. :)

Regards,
Doug

[BadgerDog]

I'm checking the vBStopForumSpam log at http://wourforum.com/admincp/vbstopforumspam.php.


I can't find anywhere in this mod to put my API number for that database, so it checks it?

Does this mod only have ONE option to set in AdminCP, which is under Registrations and it's just a single field for low, medium or high?

Thanks .. :)

Regards,
Doug

[djbaxter]

hmmm interesting, because it stopped working for me last week. I can still use other products which have this function though, so I don't think it is a connection issue.
I was just guessing again...

I just checked my logs.

On my forum, so far today, it has blocked 368 attempted registrations for spammers in the database. It has cleared numerous others to register. It had one failed connection to the spammers database and allowed the registration.

Seems to be doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

What log are you checking?
I am still getting a ton of SPAM registrations every day. This only started about a week or two ago.

I'm checking the vBStopForumSpam log at http://wourforum.com/admincp/vbstopforumspam.php.

But remember that the the database only blocks known spammers.

There are new forms of forum spam every day. The latest form has spammers using proxies and usually odd-looking member names and Gmail addresses; they don't post - they just register, add a link to their "home page", and fill the other member fields with keywords.

My member lists are not visible to non-logged in guests or spiders so this strategy is never going to work for these jerks, but nonetheless I started getting a lot of these registrations, beginning around the end of November.

At the time, I was only looking up email addresses. I changed this to check IP addresses as well and started reporting everyone of these morons to the database (all new registrations require admin aproval so they weren't difficult to spot; if you don't use manual activation, look for recent registrations with zero posts). The flow has now dropped off significantly to a few a week instead of several every day.

I can't find anywhere in this mod to put my API number for that database, so it checks it?

Does this mod only have ONE option to set in AdminCP, which is under Registrations and it's just a single field for low, medium or high?

Thanks .. :)

Regards,
Doug

Apologies to all. I had this mod bookmarked but I just double-checked and it turns out this is not the one I have installed.

The one I'm using is here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=230921

That one is working very well for me.

[Dragonsys]

Apologies to all. I had this mod bookmarked but I just double-checked and it turns out this is not the one I have installed.

The one I'm using is here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=230921

That one is working very well for me.

lol that explains why I don't have a log...
Thanks, i will have to try that one out, as this one seems to no longer work properly.

[Kat]

I had this installed on my 3x forums, do I need to make any changes to it/upgrade anything in order to use it on my 4x forums?

[Kat]

I had this installed on my 3x forums, do I need to make any changes to it/upgrade anything in order to use it on my 4x forums?

Apparently I need to change something? Because this is stopping anyone from registering.

I sure would like to continue to use this mod but I cannot if it completely stops registrations. Any help?

[rashidsre]

thnax :)

[Lord. Dela]

Apparently I need to change something? Because this is stopping anyone from registering.

I sure would like to continue to use this mod but I cannot if it completely stops registrations. Any help?

The same problem here :(

[stevether]

Failed to block known spammer by username with high settings in vb 4.2.1.

[webmastersitesi]

Does it work on 4.2.2 how we can check if it works?

[djbaxter]

Does it work on 4.2.2 how we can check if it works?

This one does: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=230921

[webmastersitesi]

This one does: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=230921

could not install

[djbaxter]

could not install

Then you're doing something wrong. And if you "can't create a table" you have a permissions issue.

[Peter Cook]

I cannot find any setting's for this apart from the one in the user registrations section! I have my own API keys for SFS where do I add this and where are the other settings?