vbStopForumSpam - known spammer lookup for new registrations
 

This provides access to a RBL type system for forum admins, listing known spam IP / email / usernames. The RBL database is provided by www.stopforumspam.com. You do NOT need an API key from the website in order to access the database. only to submit data if you should wish to do so.

At the point of user registration, the mod checks if the IP number / provided username / email addresses appear on a block list and can block the registration.

Whilst this isnt the most perfect way to stop all forum spam, its another step that spammers have to overcome.

VB4 here https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...hreadid=230921
Its the same code, it works in 3.54 to 4.0


What it does

It checks with a remote database of known forum spammers. Their IP number, email address and forum username are tested and based on your configuration, you can reject / log / accept user registrations based on what you get back.

This version doesnt have
- whitelisting or the ability to submit users to the database but it will within the next week.
- automatic user deletion / post / PM purging. There are good tools out there already, this does something else.

Instructions are included in the installation.txt file - PLEASE read it first and dont forget to actually upload the files in the upload folder, otherwise it WILL kill your registration progress and you wont see the log file options in admincp. You do not need to download the product-vbstopforumspam-3.54.xml file unless you are using a vBulletin version older than 3.6.0

Changes to vB
- 3 new database tables
- 2 database table alternations
- No new templates.
- 2 Hook (register_addmember_process & register_addmember_complete)

Ive tested it but had feedback that it works with versions as old as 3.6.2... Support should go back to older versions, as long as they have hook support for register_addmember_process / register_addmember_complete

Known to work - tested by me
- vBulletin 3.6.8 on Apache 2.2 / PHP 5.1.2 on Linux using cUrl
- vBulletin 3.7 Gold on Apache 2.0 / PHP 4.4.3 on Windows without cUrl (template changes wont work on 3.7 - thats in the next version with auto template changes)

For code to submit spammers to the database, check this post for code changes
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=288

Reported in the thread to work
- 3.6.1, 3.6.2, 3.6.9, 3.6.10, 3.7.0, 3.7.1, 3.7.2, 3.7.3, 3.74, 3.80, 3.81, 3.82, 3.83, 3.8.4, 4.0beta3

If you have 3.54, then you can use the product-vbstopforumspam-3.54.xml file attached instead of the one in the ZIP file, which will allow older vBulletin versions to access this mods' features. I personally havent tested this version, its a user contribution, thanks to Darrell Mobley, that changes the way the XML works when imported into older versions.

Installers should remember to refresh their ACP navigation window when they first install it so they can see the new log file menu item.

REQUIRES MySQL 4.1.1+

Future versions
- Automatic integration into vBulletin to add users to the stopForumSpam.com database from a form
- Whitelisting of username / IP / email addresses
- AJAX integration to allow for lookups from within the users profile
- Decreased remote query count from three per user to one per user.

Versions / Changes

0.1 Initial Release

0.2 pedigrees special brew birthday release.
- Small security update. If you have 0.1 installed, download 0.2 and replace your existing functions_vbsfs.php with the one in the archive. It just tests to see if its running inside the VB framework before anything else. This is what happens when you code at 2am after drinking wine

0.3
- stopped it processing valid registrations twice
- moved all non-function code into the plugin. Not a big one as 0.2 basically did that
- fixed a typo in the log pruner that stopped it working (404)
- removed unused fields from the database for people with mysql that doesnt support varchar > 255 (ie mySQL4). If you have 0.2 installed and dont need to prune your logs just yet, you dont really need to install this version but can instead wait for 1.0 unless of a massive security update.

0.4
- logs registrations that arent/wouldnt be blocked
- fixed XML errors when username has a space it in
- tightened up the cache so that it doesnt test a username against an email name to give a bypass result (for when a username is an email address that isnt banned where the email address is)
- fixed some basic logic errors in the PHP

0.6
- Should work on PHP 4.4 now - rewrote the XML with PHP4 in mind (tested on Apache2.0/PHP 4.4.3)
- Fixed a caching system where data wasnt being updated correctly which could cause a remote query when one wasnt needed
- Possible false negative situation when a spammer was blocked due to SFS.com being down who then visited again when it was up but within the cache expiry time
- Remote query failure when the result page isnt XML should work a bit better now. It does a very basic test for valid XML results.
- Fixed log purging (again) and it should actually work properly now.
- No longer requires PHP5
- The log viewer now links to a user profile when registration is allowed.

v0.61 - Removed a template change that was invalid vBulletin code. The package you download will still say its 0.60 however

NB : When upgrading from any version to 0.6, you must remove and then add the plugin due to changes in one of the database tables

You need to have an API key from www.stopforumspam.com in order to submit data, its free and easy to get... You DONT need an API key in order to use this mod however, only to submit spammer data.

Issues are
- The usergroup permissions / view details etc DONT work. I jumped the gun and put the permissions controls in there before I put the code in. Please delete the includes/xml/bitfield_vbstopforumspam.xml file and rebuild your postbit

Installation
- Follow the instructions in the zip file, that includes upload the correct folders
- ONLY download the 3.54 xml file if youre using a vbulletin version prior to 3.6.0. use this file to install the mod instead of the xml file in the zip file.

Please click Installed

Reserved

Lookin' good, I'll give it a try in the morning when I wake up.

SFS is a pretty good site, it's one of the reasons my site has had 0 spammers in the last 4+ months. That was just from adding their IP database to the IP banning in the ACP. This looks much better. :)

Awesome Mod!!! This will be very useful! :D

btw, does this work on 3.7.x?

Good work, thanks

Sounds good to me! Cheers. :)

Theres no reason why it shouldnt work on 3.7

Im not licensed to 3.7 and my forum is just a collection of friends chatting now and I cant afford the (or warrant the) money to upgrade it to 3.7

Ill be making a small change to the php file today, just to update a small security issue. I didnt test if it was running in the vb framework, not that I see it as an attack vector for anything

Fantastic mod! Hope to prevent bots from registering on my board:)

If anyone installs it in 3.7 and it doesnt work (you can test it yourself by grabbing a bot name from www.stopforumspam.com) - please tell me what happens and Ill try to fix it. I wish the VB guys would let me have a copy of 3.7 on my private machine, just for coding for it but I dont think thats the case.

Please mark "External" in the modification settings if this modification is retrieving data from an external site.

i try to import from this file --product-vbstopforumspam.xml

from this direction
http://beneficiofamily.com/asd.jpg

and is show

Database error in vBulletin 3.6.9:
Invalid SQL:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `vbstopforumspam` (
APIKey VARCHAR( 255 ) NOT NULL ,
ExcludeIPs VARCHAR( 5000 ) NOT NULL ,
ExcludeNames VARCHAR( 5000 ) NOT NULL ,
ExcludeEmails VARCHAR( 5000 ) NOT NULL ,
PRIMARY KEY ( APIKey )
) TYPE=MyISAM;;
MySQL Error : Too big column length for column 'ExcludeIPs' (max = 255). Use BLOB instead
Error Number : 1074
Date : Friday, April 18th 2008 @ 03:28:16 PM
Script : http://www.beneficiofamily.com/new/a...=productimport
Referrer : http://www.beneficiofamily.com/new/a...?do=productadd
IP Address : 87.111.36.43
Username : avi
Classname : vB_Database

i ask in vbulletin.com forums and the say

Gomjaba
Senior Member

You will have to ask the author who actually gave you the product (probably vb.org)

what version of mySQL are you using? Ill try to back port to non-v5 (but really, v4 is ending for end-of-live support)

Currently, those fields are there to support an upcoming version. Ill remove them in 0.3 (tonight) and attempt to support mySQL4. I dont have it installed and I cant really start installing multiple versions when v4 is so old. The 1.0 release will only support mySQL5...

If you get that error, open the XML file in notepad and delete these three lines (line 21-23) or just install v0.3

ExcludeIPs VARCHAR( 5000 ) NOT NULL ,
ExcludeNames VARCHAR( 5000 ) NOT NULL ,
ExcludeEmails VARCHAR( 5000 ) NOT NULL ,

save and then import the XML

This mod appears to be incomplete and dependent on data returned from the StopForumSpam site. I would be very nervous to install it in its present condition, maybe ever. I think the premise is okay but the implementation was not thought out as well as it might have been. Its dependency on StopForumSpam is troublesome in that they are but a single incomplete resource for IP addresses of forum spammers. I have been running a pilot spambuster for several months using their IP list for a starter lookup table and they are not as "uptodate" as you would think. I get a huge number of hits from spammers that are not in their list at all. Using only the IP address is also troublesome in that some spammer footprints get through simply because they are "not on the list".

Good idea though...

do you provide an IP list that I can make the mod work with, either downloadable or accessible?

The mod is completely dependant on SFS website, its just a RBL check. spamhaus isnt always uptodate as some would like but in stops billions of spam each day and it had to start somewhere.

With the mod installed, a spammer wll bypass its checks if not known about. Without the mod, it would get on regardless, this just puts one more step in the way.

great work, I'll give it atry.

One thing that concerns me is what happens if the SFS is down, does the registration just timeout or is their an expiry on the db call which if no return is made from the SFS site registration continues regardless of username used?

If the SFS website is down, the query will time out, adding about 10-20 seconds to the registration process but the script handles that.

You can configure the action to be taken if it times out, either allowing the registration or denying it with a configurable error, which defaults to something like "We verify new registrations against a database but its currently down, please try again later, sorry for the inconvenience"

Sounds interesting. Maybe I'll give it a try later.

Well, its blocking between 2-10 registrations per day on my small site, so it does work as another annoyance for the spammers

Great mod!

Quick question: Is the check for username/ip/email an "AND" check or an "OR" check? In other words, do all 3 have to match in order for someone to be blocked, or can any one match for a block? If it's an "OR" check, I probably will turn off username check as that could block a lot of potentially legit users.

Thanks!
-vissa

I installed this on 365 (which does have the needed hook). However, I tried registering myself more than once and it allowed me through after a relatively long wait. I did set the system to allow registration if there is a timeout/error. However, I don't see any record of the two attempts in the "vbStopForumSpam Logs".

Is the server still working with this? How can I test to make sure this plugin is still working and not just timing out every time?

Thanks
-vissa

It appears to only log blocked accounts. I can verify that it is working with 365.. Now to test with 3.7!!

-vissa

I will have to look at the code when I get home tomorrow but it should log timeouts. Ill reverify this and if its not the case, then make sure it logs this. Ill add an option to log everything as well, all tests, all timeouts etc, this will tell people exactly whats going on.

I have had at least 1 user report their friend could not register due to a fatal error.. This is using 3.6.5 w/vbseo

Errror below (some details changed to xxx)

Looks like the above error only occurs for usernames that have a SPACE in them... You can temporarily turn off the username check to avoid this for now (though a few extra spammers might get through).... A bug in the code somewhere?

-vissa

0.4 uploaded and it should fix this issue

First off, thank you. Great Mod.

A couple of responses to previous comments as well as a few suggestions.

Regrading not StopFormSpam not having a complete list of SPAM IP/Email/Names, this is a moving target and a service is only as good as the data that feeds it and the sources that generate that data. It seems like the more of us that use this plug in (with our API keys enabled) the more we build up the StopForumSpam database.

Regarding usage when SFS is offline, perhaps caching a copy of the IP CSV locally (refreshing once an hour (or other configurable threshold)

I thought about caching the IP stuff locally. Im not sure if russ would appreciate an hourly download but a daily one might be viable. Ill look how I could add it to v1 :) It shouldnt be too hard as it caches IP data anyway.

Doesnt seem to work on 3.7 RC1.. just hangs up after you fill out the registration form.

Thanks pedigree, left it over at the SF Forum, but to echo it here:

Couple more suggestions:

1) Make the usernames in the VBStopForumSpam Log linkable to the user record so that when reviewing the log we can easily click to open that user and delete / ban

2) When adding the ability to "Add user to StopForum" I would love to see it in 2 places: a) the thread/post itself for deleting thread/post, deleting (or banning?) user and reporting to StopForum in one click b) the user drop down within a thread/post to delete and report user c) in the User record in Admin to select delete and report as a drop down option.

I had 10 or so slip by this morning and was looking high and low for the submit to SF option only to come back here and see it has not been added yet, doh!

#1 - not a problem, that can be easily added. Its going to POST a form to the user search function as the user is assigned an ID after vbSFS has completed its processing. I would have to add another plugin to link to a user id directly. You shouldnt really notice any difference unless you click a user that was blocked and then the search would return no results.

#2 - I can add that with a two forms. I emailed russ about remote form submitting and never got a reply. If he changes the way the form is submitted (ie hidden input values, cookie verification etc) on his site, then any form I make will instantly be broken. I was hopnig that he would finalise a submit API. Until then, I guess we can work around those :)

I dont have a license for 3.7 Im sorry so there is no way that I can even update the script. Unless vbulletin.com let people run a copy on a private network, Im sprry but a LOT of mods will never get ported beyond 3.6.x :(

I *might* be able to use a friends board but hes not purchased any upgrades.. Hes thinking about it.

Ive just had an email back from vbulletin.com who specifically said that if I wanted to write mods for 3.7, then I would have to pay to upgrade my license. Im not willing to pay a lot of cash to upgrade my forum (thats not used anymore) just in order to write free, non-paid mods Im sorry.

#1 is done and is with someone for testing, will be in v0.5

#2 As I mentioned in the original mod post, there are plenty of ban/delete/clean up mods out there, all linking from thread/post/forum pages. Ill see how I can add the report to the website without breaking any of the 1-click ban/delete mods... if I did, I would be very unpopular. This will require template changes so Ill try my best.

ive looked at th one-stop clean/ban plugin and it looks like I can add a "submit to stopformspam" in much the same way, in the same places. its not a small piece of code change so it might take me a little while Im afraid.

Anyone confirm whether this works on 3.6.2? I know I'm a little behind on upgrades.... but this would invaluable!!!

Just used the Stop Forum Spam site to remove one today, would be great to have it automated!

edit register.php and search for register_addmember_process and register_addmember_complete - if you find them in something that says hook on the same line, then it should work.

This is a great mod. Can you pretty pretty please port it to 3.7 ?

So StopForumSpam.com has stopped responding (5/23 4amPST) for the last 30 min or so (DOS??). The result is that registrations are failing with a blank white screen.

Errors being thrown are:

Tried adjusting time out settings with no success.. bummer.

Thanks will give this a bash ... if and when the site comes back up!

Site is back up, albeit a bit slow at the moment.

No mention of what happened on the SFS forum.

Denial of service?

Since installing this I wasn't getting any new registrants where I had multiple eaach day. I tested it and when any of the checking features is enabled I get this error:

Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: simplexmlelement in /home/content/XXXXXXX/html/forum/includes/functions_vbsfs.php on line 47

What gives?