Miscellaneous Hacks - NoSpam! - an alternative to CAPTCHA images

This hack is for vBulletin 3.6.x. For 3.5.x, please use the one provided in this thread. If you are using 3.7.x, you must use the one in this thread.

This simple hack is meant as a replacement for the default CAPTCHA system in vBulletin. There are two main reasons one might want to do this: firstly, new technology is constantly being developed to crack CAPTCHA images and make spam accounts anyway, and secondly, the more secure the CAPTCHA, the more difficult it is for genuine users to tell what the numbers in the image are. There is also the issue of visually impaired users, and the fact that not all servers are capable of generating CAPTCHA images.

So what does this hack do instead? It asks a question. Any question you want. That's the best part: YOU make up the questions, which means that every forum is unique, which means that it is impossible for spambots to be simply programmed to bypass it at all forums with the hack installed. You can make one or many questions - if you make many, the hack will pick one at random when a guest attempts to register, search, post or send mail through the Contact Us form. Their input is compared with your specified answer, and voil?, if they get it right they're pretty much guaranteed to be human. If they get it wrong, they're given an error message.

It doesn't have to be a complicated question. Heck, you can just make it "Please type 'blah' into this box." Or you can go with inserting a simple image with HTML and ask what is shown on the image. Or you can ask them to tell you two plus two. It's up to you. In fact, this can also be used as a means of forcing people to read the rules by asking for a certain password found there, or if your forum focuses on a specialized subject, ask a question concerning the subject that all your genuine users will be able to answer, but a random troll or "CAPTCHA-sweatshop-reader" will be scratching their head over.

It's simple to install, too: just one product to import, and that's it.


VERSION HISTORY:

3.0: Added functionality to allow users to specify which pages should use NoSpam!.
2.0: Extended the NoSpam! functionality to guest posts, guest searches and guest "Contact Us" in addition to registration.
1.1: Made template edit automatic (with thanks to Cole2026), added ability to have more than one answer to each question, and made answers case insensitive. To upgrade, I recommend undoing the template edit so you won't have to worry about it anymore (replace $nospamfield in the template register with $imagereg, or if you added $nospamfield above $imagereg, just remove $nospamfield altogether), and then reimport the product through the Admin CP (making sure that Allow Overwrite is set to On).
1.0: Initial release.


INSTALLATION:

Please download NoSpam!.zip, not product-nospam.xml, for the tested version. product.nospam.xml is NoSpam! 4.0 adapted blindly to 3.6, i.e. by editing the XML file for the 3.7 version without actually testing it on a 3.6 board. Theoretically it should work, but I cannot guarantee it at this time. If you download NoSpam!.zip and unzip it, it will contain another file called product.nospam.xml, which you should use.

1. Import product-nospam.xml through the Admin CP product manager.
2. Go to your vBulletin options in the Admin CP and select NoSpam! Settings. Once there, turn the system on and input your questions and answers according to the instructions there.

The system should now be functional and running.


UNINSTALLATION:

Just uninstall the product through the Admin CP.


SUPPORT:

Full support will be given here in this thread. All suggestions are welcome.

Thank you and please click "Mark as Installed" if you like it.


If NoSpam! is not working for you or you are looking for something a little different, you might want to check out Advanced Textual Confirmation.

[Pestillence]

Very nice Mod.
Thank you very much.

[Smoothie]

There should be a petition to have this added into vBulletin as a standard feature. The more ways we can figure out how to prevent these +++++++s from spamming our forums, the better.

[makaiguy]

[Clicks INSTALL]
Have been getting hammered with pr0n spammers lately. Just added this to my 3.5.4 test board (via the info on page 3 of this thread) and it seems to be working great. Now off to put in into my 'real' board. (I'll get around to installing 3.6.x one of these days ...).

Thank you for a wonderful contribution to the vB community!

[Loso]

Installed it and works fine

Thank you very much

[mrpotatohead]

I've just tried to install this and got this error back:

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.0:

Invalid SQL:

### INSERT QUERY GENERATED BY fetch_query_sql() ###
INSERT INTO plugin
(`active`, `executionorder`, `title`, `hookname`, `phpcode`, `product`)
VALUES
('1', '5', 'Cache the NoSpam! template', 'cache_templates', 'if (THIS_SCRIPT == \'register\')\r\n{\r\n $globaltemplates[] = \'nospam\';\r\n}', 'nospam');

MySQL Error : Unknown column 'executionorder' in 'field list'
Error Number : 1054
Date : Tuesday, November 28th 2006 @ 01:59:52 AM
Script : http://www.bigbrotherforums.net/foru...ncp/plugin.php
Referrer : http://www.bigbrotherforums.net/foru...?do=productadd
IP Address : 62.6.158.162
Username : Big Brother
Classname : vb_database

Any ideas?!


- Joe

[benpaul10]

Originally Posted by Panzer Max

I think what you do is, go into the Edit template, Register templates, open the one called simply "register".

Then do a search for regimagecheck and you will see:

<if condition="$show['regimagecheck']">
			<fieldset class="fieldset">

I just added $nospamfield above the line like this:

$nospamfield
<if condition="$show['regimagecheck']">
			<fieldset class="fieldset">

Seems to work for me with 3.5.4
I updated both of my templates that way.

Works great thanks Panzer

[xKillswitchx]

This will be very useful for me, as the past two days I have been banning members left and right for posting porn and drive cleaner links. Thanks alot!

[Moturdrn]

Out of two forums so far, one hasn't had a single spammer back (touch wood), and the other has only had one (which we suspect was human input and then setting the bot loose) in the past five days (whereas previously we were banning roughly 3, 4, or 5 a day. Again, touch wood).

Easy to install, easy to use, and an absolute gem in the use against spammers

[beansbaxter]

what question(s) are you guys using on this?

will 2+2 work? do new users see this as dumb and trivial and not sign up?

i really like this idea, not knocking it, just curious if its hurting the rate of new user signups??

[adwade]

Originally Posted by beansbaxter

what question(s) are you guys using on this?

will 2+2 work? do new users see this as dumb and trivial and not sign up?

Not at all, mine LOVE it. Start a thread asking your users to develop some questions for it and you'll have a blast!