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.

[aramik]

Hmm, it's on. Well the types of usernames they register with and the certain sections they post in make me believe they are too stupid to be human. It could be my questions, ill add more complex ones.

[derfelix]

Originally Posted by Top Nurse

I just installed this into our live forum and it works perfectly in 3.6.5! (see here for the hack mod)

Happy to read its working.. but.. its also a draw back..
if you have for example 3 languages installed, you also have to accept at least 3 answers for every question. .. that makes it a little easier for bots as some may consider it as a password and use brute force.... .

btw a question.. as the difficulty of the questions often comes up.

isnt it rather the length of the answer? because in my understanding, either someone understands the question or doesnt.. if he doesnt then the difficulty doesnt matter.

but if he does he can answer any question.. or am I wrong??
thats why i meant.. the length of the answer might rather be important.. rather than the difficulty... (a program will take longer to find a fitting word with 8 letters than a three letter word)

Felix

[antialiasis]

Well, the thing is that no computer is going to be programmed to sit there cycling through possible answers to NoSpam! questions, especially if the questions change randomly. It makes much more economical sense to just make it give up and go to a forum that doesn't have NoSpam! installed. Remember that to prevent a thief from breaking in, you only need your house to be a bit more secure than your neighbour's.

[wwhiker]

This is awesome! Thank you so much. :up:

[Rich]

Hello,

Yes, the issue was that it just wasn't appearing in Opera at all. It displayed fine in every other browser, but for some reason, it didn't display in Opera. I went ahead and redownloaded Opera and it started working. I had even emptied the cache and temp files to see if it was just a quirk. Who knows, but it displays in Opera now and that is all I was concerned about.

[odie3]

Very nice - this is great! I added like 10 questions!

Thank You!

BTW, it would be nice to have a link to refresh the question like the image has...

[toytaco99]

Just wanted to post up a thanks to the developer of this plugin. It has worked WONDERS for our forum. We used to get between 3 and 4 new Spam registrations each day and in the past week since I installed it, we have had NONE. Excellent job. :up:

[blinking8s]

Ok...I've been pounding my head against the wall.

We recently upgraded to 3.6.5 and for months have been plagued with spam, it's worse than ever now.

So I downloaded the NoSpam! 3.0, uploaded the xml, and now I'm lost.

Everything is present in the admin, but I can't seem to get it to display.

The install instructions don't seem to tell me a lot, they end with a nice THATS IT! and you would think things would work.

Which template files do I need to edit? The implimentation file discribes it's use with the quick register hack at the top. That confused me, because I don't have that.

I don't see any option to select the pages it appears on. Just if I want it on a specific 4 pages which looks to be present in the previous versions changelog.

Do I need captcha enabled?

I apologize for my retardation. It's frustrating cause so many users have given praise on ease of installation and how good a job this has done. But the instructions and troubleshooting are just not clear to me.

[antialiasis]

There should be a file in the NoSpam! zip you got called troubleshooting.txt. This describes the template edits you need to make to make NoSpam! appear on each of the supported pages if it does not work immediately upon installation. Follow the instructions for those pages you have enabled where it is not working. The integration file is about integrating NoSpam! with other hacks and is not relevant to your case if you don't need it integrated with other hacks.

Those four options are the pages you can select for it to appear on, as they are the only places in the forum at which I could picture NoSpam! as being remotely useful. The change since version 2.0 is that now you can choose to disable it for one or more of those pages, while previously it would always appear on all of them. Make sure you at least have it set to be enabled at registration, and perhaps the others if you would like that; now follow the instructions for template edits in the troubleshooting.txt file you downloaded for each page you enabled where it is not appearing. For example, if you enabled it at registration but not at the Contact Us page, you should follow the instructions under REGISTRATION, but not those under CONTACT US.

[jketron]

I am running 3.6.5 vbulletin and your latest version of NoSpam and I had it working fine, for reasons unknown I no longer get the prompt during new user registration to enter the text for Nospam verification. I have the little image thing that the users have to type but the field and question are missing. I have it enabled in the admincp and the new user registration fails with the notice that I didn't answer the NoSpam question...I never got the chance

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