Anti-Spam Options - [GlowHost] Spam-O-Matic - Spam Firewall stops forum spam

If you install this mod, please mark this as "Installed."

VERSION 2.1.2 RELEASED 5/28/2013!


About Spam-O-Matic 2.x:
Spam-O-Matic 2.x (SOM) is a spam firewall for your vBulletin Forums version 4.x and later. It prevents known spammers from registering on your forums. If they can't register, they can't spam!

Languages Packs Available
English
German - Courtesy of Alex@bulletin (included in zip)
Romanian - Courtesy of Teascu Dorin's (included in zip)
Spanish - Courtesy of vbluis (included in zip)

How it Works
This data responsible for blocking user registrations comes from the stopforumspam.com (SFS) spammer database. After the user who is trying to register passes the built-in vBulletin registration checks which you have configured in your vBulletin settings, SOM then checks the SFS database to see if the IP, username, or email address that the user is trying to register with has been recently tagged as a known spam source on other forums around the Internet. Also can be configured to check the Akismet service for known comment spam.

This is without a doubt, one of the most important mods that you will be using on your forum.

Other Notable Stuff
It also does a ton of other cool stuff like moderating posts automatically if the post is found in the Akismet database, or if it contains words on your "Bad Words" keyword list which can be configured within the mod itself.

The mod WORKS with vBulletin's new Facebook integration.
This module works with all of the Facebook functions that are built into the vB4 series.
Similar mods do not handle Facebook integration completely.

This module has the ability to submit new spammer details to the StopForumSpam or Akismet databases automatically, all without any new templates or manual template modifications! :up:

This means other forums that are running Spam-O-Matic will not have the same spammer on their forums if you have (automatically) reported the spammer to the SFS database.

Just install the product in the product manager, upload a few files, configure the system and you are done. (Estimated time: 5-10 minutes)

What's new in 2.1.0:

• Fixed a problem with MySQL engine selection to make mod more compatible with different types of servers.
• When SOM "Newbies Group" is activated + vB's native option to "Verify Email address in Registration" is activated at the same time, "Users Awaiting Email Confirmation" must click the verification link to become a newbie.
• Added remove user, post, ban to user profile options in admincp under "Quick User Links"
• Added German Language Pack
• Optimized default settings to work with the needs of most forums
• Added a new coupon for GlowHost (available after you submit a spammer)
• Several other performance tuning options

Feature List:

• Optional Public Statistics. Show off to the world how many bad guys you have automatically prevented from posting junk on your forum.
• Auto-Moderation moderates posts that have links, bad words, and other configurable settings.
• Auto-Moderation ignores your RSS posts.
• Registration / Denial Logs available from Admincp > Statistics and Logs
• Optional "Newbies" Manager! After registration, newly registered users can be placed in a "Newbies" group which has more limited permissions as compared to your regular "Registered Users" group. Newbies will graduate to your Registered Users group based on your required post count settings.
• Auto-Submit Spammers from the moderation tools menu on each postbit.
• Remove Posts, threads, PMs, Calendar Events from your spammer in one easy wizard. No double logins needed.
• Shows other users who signed up with the same IP. (Sleeping Spammers)
• Optional Affiliate System
• ~50 customizable settings to fine-tune Spam-O-Matic to your exact needs.

A) StopForumSpam:
The StopForumSpam Module lets you:

• Check a registrant's IP address.
• Check a registrant's email address.
• Check a registrants Username.
• Disable or enable any of the above checks.
• Block and log, or, allow and log known spammers.
• All registration attempts are logged for your viewing pleasure.
• Several other performance tuning options

If a user (or bot) tries to register on your forum and they pass the built-in vBulletin registration system. (Human verification, email verification, etc), their registration details are then passed to the Spam-O-Matic firewall for further checking.

NOTE: You should use some sort of human verification checking in vBulletin's built-in options to limit the number of requests to the already heavily-loaded StopForumSpam database servers. This will also prevent additional load because SOM will not have to do anything if the bot/spammer fails preliminary registration validation which is built-into vBulletin itself.

It is completely invisible to humans who are registering that this process is taking place. Bots are stopped dead in their tracks.

If a spammer is able to sneak past the first line of defense, and manages to post, then there are secondary, tertiary, and, uh...4th level protections too!

B) Auto-Moderation:
Auto Moderation lets you:

• Define how many URLs a new member can post before being sent to moderation.
• Define keywords that will send a post to Auto-moderation (viagra, porn, more here)
• Define minimum post count to avoid Auto-moderation.
• Excludes admin and moderators from Auto-moderation.
• Completely disable Auto-moderation if you don't want it.

C) Akismet Service
Spammers that make it past the StopForumSpam and Auto-Moderation will be checked against the Akismet service. If they manage to make a post, and then are found on Akismet, they can be auto-moderated.

The Akismet settings let you:

• Set the number of posts that Akismet will check from each user. After this number is exceeded, Akismet checking will be disabled for that user.
• Auto-Submit spammers that post on your boards back to the Akismet service so that other forums and blogs do not do not receive the same spam.
• Completely disable the Akismet service.

D) Newbies Manager
Should you decide to enable this option, you can create a new usergroup and then tell Spam-O-Matic about it. Once SOM knows about this usergroup, and once enabled, all new users will be part of the Newbies group. The idea here is that you make a Newbies group that has limited forum permissions. For example, no signatures, no BB code, no images, and etc. This group is created completely in the vB admincp. Spam-O-Matic simply makes it the graduation process to the normal Registered Users group, automatic.
Learn More and Discuss the Newbies Manager here.

Punitive Actions:
If you find a spammer has made it past your 4 front-lines of defense, and has managed to post on your forum, then you can help the community...

The spammer's details can be sent to the Stop Forum Spam and Akismet databases automatically, preventing them from registering or posting on other forums. When other forums do the same, the protection is reciprocated.

Simply moderate a post and choose the option to "Delete Posts As Spam..." an then choose the option to "Ban User." Banning the user sends their details to either Akismet, StopForumSpam, (or both) depending on how you set it up.

API Keys:
API Keys are not required for this system to stop spammers on your forums. But you should obtain them so that your forum can contribute to the real-time block lists.

A StopForumSpam API key is required if you want to contribute to the StopForumSpam blacklists by adding your spammers to their database. By submitting spammers you help keep other forums and blogs clean.

An Akismet API key is required if you want to enable any Akismet auto-moderation features in this module. Akismet API key is not required for all Auto-Moderation functions.

You can obtain a Stop Forum Spam API key which is free from stopforumspam.com.

Get your StopForumSpam API Key Here

You can obtain an Akismet API key from Akismet.com.
Akismet offers free and paid API keys so choose your version based on your situation.

Get your Akismet API Key Here

Why it is better than the other anti-spam solutions on vBulletin.org:

• Works with all of vBulletin 4 functions including Facebook automatic registration.
• Report spammers that you find to the Stop Forum Spam Database.
• Report spammers that you find to the Akismet Database.
• Built-in Auto-moderation.
• Auto-moderation rules based on post count.
• Auto-moderation rules based keywords.
• Auto-moderation rules based Akismet results.
• Enable or disable any actions that you do not want.
• Customizable "Registration Rejected" message.
• Consolidates 4 popular methods of spam prevention into one product.
• No Manual Template Modifications!
• Lots of community support!

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Compatibility:
vBulletin 4.0.x

Server Requirements:
Curl or allow_url_fopen must be compiled/enabled into PHP. Ask your web host to enable curl or allow_url_fopen if it is not already available on your server's PHP configuration. (Or just host with GlowHost.com, where it already is

=====================
Donations:

If you like this mod, sure, you can donate!

Donations can be all sorts of things:
1) The "Give Thanks" option in your settings is an optional link back to GlowHost Web Hosting.
2) Tell your friends and others about this mod.
3) If you are in need of web hosting, please consider ordering it from the hosting and development professionals at GlowHost.com who were able to develop this mod to you.
4) Help others who are having trouble with this mod by posting tips and suggestions in this forum thread.
5) Cash! Use the "Support Developer" option on the top right of this page.

When you choose to donate, you are contributing to the product development, bug fixes and new releases for SOM and are helping to feed our hungry developers and their families! In other words, your donations helps to cover the time and money spent to develop this system.

The entire team at GlowHost thanks you for your help and support!

We hope you enjoy the mod! :up:

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Installation:

1) Download the attached file
2) Mark As Installed
3) SOM 2.x does not support updates from the v1.x series.
When upgrading to version 2.x, please, be sure to remove any other existing version of SOM 1.x from the product manager before installing v2.x series. Also make sure to remove /forum/includes/xml/bitfield_glowhostspamomatic.xml from version 1 if you had it installed.

4) Extract the zip file, and view the readme file for the rest of the instructions.

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Original concept credits go to the authors of vBStopForumSpam, MonkeyStop.

[CRDeveloper]

So I can only ban them right now?

[LisaArnold]

So I'm guessing by the no response to my last post on page 69, that there isn't an answer, or no one knows what the answer is.

I hope there is an answer because it's becoming a real problem having to check everyone who manages to get past SOM and then having to manually ban then delete 99% of them as reported spammers with multiple reports (some up to recent 200 reports). If I can't get this fixed, I might as well uninstall it, because I'm doing all the work still- like I used to do.

Please, if someone knows why it's not working, can you fill me in so I can get it fixed?!

BTW, I'm using v4.1.2 (haven't updated to v4.1.3 yet) if that helps.

[dustoff99]

Originally Posted by CRDeveloper

So I can only ban them right now?

I ban the people that have attempted to register on my site if they use the same ip over and over.

[GlowHost.com]

Originally Posted by Pionex

let me explain this clearly for you,
when you download this file there will be ffolders named admincp and includes... and so on ( i have not downloaded this yet, so I dont know what is included )

inside of those folders will be files, you need to take the files from the folders and upload them into the corresponding folders on your server.

example:
admincp folder included with this download has files within it, take those files out of that admincp folder and put them into your admincp folder on your sever. repeat this process for each corresponding folder, items not in a folder go directly into public_html

that explain it better?

Thank you for your explanation. If anyone has the same question, Pionex nailed it.

Originally Posted by liltiger

no... I originally tried to upload to my forum... and it wanted to replace admin cp and include...

then another post here said to put them in admin cp

If I could delete that post, I would. Its not a very good explanation and misleading that the files are supposed to go in admincp....Please ignore that post.

Originally Posted by LisaArnold

I have a question that I can't seaem to find an answer for...

Does the Spam-O-Matic have a unbalanced tilt towards not recognizing IP reports in favor of email reports from submissions?

I ask this because on our forum- every spammer that gets through has bad IP reports from sometimes days/months before registering with our site. They get through with a good email, but the IP comes back as previously reported. This has happened numerous times.

I find that this is the case for nearly 99% of the bans. We're using the VBulletin version of Spam-O-Matic and this problem has been on-going for at least a month if not longer.

There is no bias, if you have a check enabled, and it finds a match, registration is denied. 1's and 0's

Maybe you need to adjust your settings for StopForumSpam: Remote Expiry

If it is the default of 90 days, then if that IP spammed in the last 90 days, they should be blocked. If you have set this value too low, like 10 days for example, and the spammer didn't spam from that IP for the last 10 days, but then started spamming again on the 11th day, they would be allowed to register.

Originally Posted by Pionex

Spam-O-Matic Tagged ip - 213.163.97.20 Unable to connect to StopForumSpam.com. This is probably due to some temporary problems on their website: Unable to check. User passed to vBulletin registration system per your settings at 'StopForumSpam: Query Conne


Im not connecting to their website..... whats the issue?

Ask your web hosting company. If they can't tell you, you could always host with us.

Originally Posted by Mark Hewitt

I've also just been spammed by someone who doesn't appear in the logs.

That is not abnormal, SOM is not a clairvoyant, psychic or extrasense depending on what you call it in your part of the world.

It cant predect or detect every user who might be a spammer. Some users will get past registration and spam your forum. That is when you use the moderation tools and select the Spam-O-Matic option and (assuming you have API keys for stopforumspam.com) then you delete the posts and report the user simultaneously so that they do not come back to your board, or any other board who has this plugin installed.

=================================

Here are our current stats since the last release:

10800 Spammers Denied Registration

14 Spammers Permanently Banned

35 Spammers submitted to StopForumSpam

69 Spammy Posts Automatically Moderated

[liltiger]

Ok - now it does not notice bad words posted in private messages...

Can this be tweaked to do that?

We have issues with folks sending private messages with 'spam'.
These are not standard spam everything types, but organised real life people that like to sell other forums products from their forum. They are clever and will wait until out of quarantine and then send via private message.

I've tested and PMs are not being noticed

[LisaArnold]

Originally Posted by GlowHost.

There is no bias, if you have a check enabled, and it finds a match, registration is denied. 1's and 0's

Maybe you need to adjust your settings for StopForumSpam: Remote Expiry

If it is the default of 90 days, then if that IP spammed in the last 90 days, they should be blocked. If you have set this value too low, like 10 days for example, and the spammer didn't spam from that IP for the last 10 days, but then started spamming again on the 11th day, they would be allowed to register.

Thanks for your help/reply, it's much appreciated. :up:

I've got my Expiry set at 120 (is that a wrong amount?), and today I purchased & added an Akistmet API and the spammers are still getting through. I don't know what else to do. *sigh*

Anymore suggestions?

[GlowHost.com]

Originally Posted by liltiger

Ok - now it does not notice bad words posted in private messages...

Can this be tweaked to do that?

We have issues with folks sending private messages with 'spam'.
These are not standard spam everything types, but organised real life people that like to sell other forums products from their forum. They are clever and will wait until out of quarantine and then send via private message.

I've tested and PMs are not being noticed

I can't think of any spammers who have so much time on their hands that they would make 10 legitimate posts and then send PM spam. Are you using the newbies group and is that group able to send PMs? Newbies should have virtually no permissions other than to post, and you set those perms in the usergroup manager.

Originally Posted by LisaArnold

Thanks for your help/reply, it's much appreciated. :up:

I've got my Expiry set at 120 (is that a wrong amount?), and today I purchased & added an Akistmet API and the spammers are still getting through. I don't know what else to do. *sigh*

Anymore suggestions?

120 is OK, and some spammers are still going to get through. Are your statistics showing that it is working at all?

[LisaArnold]

It's stopping some, but in the last 2 - 3 months, more spammers have gotten through than it's stopped.
I just don't understand why it stopped working well, it was doing fine until we upgraded to vb-4.1.2 and don't know what changed with the upgrade, so I don't know what to fix.

Classic example - 5th June - IP: 95.84.199.154 - in a little over a month, it's had 200 reports submitted to SFS; it got through & the email - kraftma87@gmx.com - has been reported 34 times. I have no idea how it managed to still register.

Thanks for the reply though.

[liltiger]

Originally Posted by GlowHost.com

I can't think of any spammers who have so much time on their hands that they would make 10 legitimate posts and then send PM spam. Are you using the newbies group and is that group able to send PMs? Newbies should have virtually no permissions other than to post, and you set those perms in the usergroup manager.

Sorry - that is just what they do... a small group that are only interested in direct marketing of a set of products to a select market - so forums that deal with that select market are the only target.

The 'cult chieftain' has been run out of town by most organisations that deal with the subject area in question... started his own forum, but the apostles act on the process I described...

The newbies group have no permissions - but these folks will wait that out...

I thought that this product would pick up the links in the PMs - but on testing it does not do this. Any solutions?

[caracena]

Yeah, edit the PMs template and add a little text at the bottom of all outgoing PMs stating somethig like:

Help us combat spam. If you feel this private message is spam, please click this link

I don't know... just a thought. My forum is in spanish and luckily for us, we don't have that kind of spamers.. yet.