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!

======================
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:

=====================
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.

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

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

[Alfa1]

Its nice to see 3 important hacks combined.
Is there any chance to also get:
- minimal registration speed check
- hidden registration fields (that only bots can see)

That would make this complete.

[GlowHost.com]

Its possible.

I like the sound of the first one but am not sure how useful the second one would be since the spammers that code the bots are people, and they generally are going to want to see the fields that they are trying to defeat when they program their bots.

If a bot doesn't know what to put in a field, it will be bank, the same as a human who can't see the field. This might also cause accessibility problems for some people who rely on bots like screen-readers to do things for them.

Maybe I missed the concept of the second idea though.

[Alfa1]

Many vb boards have mandatory custom profile fields. Spam bots need to fill these in to register. Every board has different custom fields, so spammers have little chance to anticipate. It would be easy to add invisible fields with standard names. If you add a hidden profile field named 'Interests' then chances are that a bot will recognize this and fill it in. There used to be a addon that did this, but cant find it ATM.

Two other suggestion that would make this anti-spam suite complete are:

• Bad behaviour: http://www.bad-behavior.ioerror.us/d.../how-it-works/
• Option to disallow disposable email domains from registration. There is a list here. People can easily add the list to the email ban list, but it would be far more useful to have a centrally updated list. (doesnt need to be updated more than once every few months) And most admins do not realize the problems that disposable email addresses pose.

BTW: Many boards are getting a lot of profile spam these days. Does this addon deal with that or is that something that needs an additional solution?

[GlowHost.com]

Thanks for the suggestions, it would be good to have a central DB of disable emails, I agree.

This does not deal with profile spam, or blog spam at the moment. Those are planned for a later release. The primary purpose is to block registrations of known-spammers, then moderate the ones that are able to sneak past so that they never get as far as being able to spam in the first place.

[Alfa1]

Originally Posted by GlowHost.com

then moderate the ones that are able to sneak past so that they never get as far as being able to spam in the first place.

Does that mean that you aim to add cookie based multiple account detection for banned accounts?

This addon works very well: Multiple Account Detection & Prevention
It seems a perfect combination with your addon. (as is vmail)

[GlowHost.com]

Probably not. Only people use cookies and spammers are rarely people. The other thing is people can delete cookies.

What I meant was that if they get past the blacklist checks then in the current version if they do anything "spammy" they will generally be caught by auto-moderation and moderated.

In version 2 all new members are placed in a new usergroup which has (configurable) limited permissions. If they make it past X posts they will graduate to the standard registered users group. If they do anything spammy in either group they will be moderated, until they are no longer checked for automatic moderation based on your postcount settings.

Your spammer would have to be a very persistent and bored person to make it to the registered users group and if they are that much of a pain in the butt then banning their IP from your server is always an option. I think it would be a rare day.

[Alfa1]

I do use a usergroup for new users, which they can only get out of if they receive 5 reputation points. That does work like a charm. Post count is something that spam bots seem to recognize, as they just start posting like crazy to get more than X posts. That caused me to put it the post count at 50. My staff catches them well before they can make that, as they are there around the clock.

I would expect that same about cookies, but I actually catch a very substantial number of spammers trough cookie. Happens every day.

Even after all of the above (including all of my suggestions and multiple account detection) we still get spammers, that try to circumvent the links block, in various creative ways. All these measures did get rid of 99% of all spam though, so its vital functionality for me.

To get an idea: I get 7.000 registrations attempts per month, of which 4.000 are successful and have confirmed their email and passed all spam checks. I have 3.000 banned members.

[maidos]

a suggestion for spammers who already are a memebe on the board, how do you preven them, you know they dont only spam by posting thread but they also spam all members on pm with the llinks so how can this mod prevent further spam

[GlowHost.com]

There is not much you can do about existing spammers with this mod. This mod prevents them from getting on the boards in the first place. You should probably install it now to prevent more bad guys from signing up, then start working on your existing spammers using alternative means.

[onehost]

here is one.

I have people / spammers registering on my forum...but afterwood disappear
into nothingness, no trace of the members name or anything...

this is what i find in spam matic log:

Venusian Arts PUA Spam-O-Matic Tagged ip - 98.64.196.143 - Spammer Found but allowed

It says it has identified the spammer, but has allowed the spammer.

So i can not find any record of the member in non-validated to registered to banned,
the member record is just no where to be found....

on another signup attempt, I get this one:

No Username Submitted Spam-O-Matic Tagged email - (email) Spammer Found but allowed.

Whats going on?