[TheMilkCarton]

You must have fast bots because mine usually take over 5 seconds on the *first* time.

After studying over 200+ of the last few days' attempts, I've realized it's meaningless to ban a specific IP or a specific email.. They ALWAYS change and even if they do re-attempt it's always from a different IP.

After getting several hundred attempts, I've also realized they are ALL covered by already very comprehensive banlist, and they ALL register from a specific timezone... so I might set the Execution Order of the timezone registration prevention hack higher than this, just so I don't get so many freaking emails.

What I have noticed is that there are a few select bots that always attempt with the exact same username. I'm already blocking them otherwise, so it's pointless to try banning them by username, though.

Also, Lionel...

Do you keep CAPTCHA on with all the options enabled? This mod isn't really doing anything for you then.. Probably 50% of your bots are taking over 5 seconds to register, and the thing that's keeping them from your forum is the CAPTCHA. I guess it can be useful with the things you've added to it, but you're probably getting a bunch of useless emails (unless of course you turned those off).

I, on the other hand, have disabled CAPTCHA (to make registration easier!) and with my suite of mods I've managed to avoid several hundred attempts in the past few days! I let one slip through on purpose to test my anti-spam mods, and those work well, too.