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

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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.

[MISTER2]

Originally Posted by GlowHost.com

It is not recommended to run both Give Thanks and Affiliate System at the same time. But just so I can be clear, and can test, where does this line break occur, in the footer link bar or in the copyright section?

It should not make a line break in the footer links with a default install of vB, I have tested this and the only thing that happens is two links for Web Hosting appear. I have not tested the copyright section though.

Yes, they should generate a different a href if you have entered in your affiliate ID into the settings of SOM. If you enable the affiliate system and do not supply any affiliate URL then it will default to http://glowhost.com

That makes sense, when both were enabled the line break was occurring in the copyright section.
We don't have any mods to remove the copyright section.

[kevbentz]

The latest VB release 4.1.2 seems to have removed all the SOM options from the User Manager, although the rest of it seems to be functioning normally.

[TeknoSounds]

Originally Posted by kevbentz

The latest VB release 4.1.2 seems to have removed all the SOM options from the User Manager, although the rest of it seems to be functioning normally.

user manager features were removed in the latest version of SOM, not a conflict with vB 4.1.2

[OldSchoolDSL]

Finally got around to updating.

Installed & working

4.1.1

[RitaW]

Originally Posted by MISTER2

+1 on this, I considered going back to the previous version as I used the AdminCP profile editor remove/report feature all the time to remove/report sleepers that made it through the security.

I like the new stats feature, but really miss the AdminCP remove/report tool.

In the mean time I created a Sleeper Spammer usergroup to hold all the ones that make it through. I will keep my fingers crossed that there will be an update with the AdminCP remove/report tool.

Same here. It was really handy. Would be great to have it re-enabled.
Great program though.

[kevbentz]

Originally Posted by GlowHost.com

Its been removed because there were too many conflicts and we wanted to get version 2 released. If there are enough requests for it we can look in to re-enabling it.

I'd like to see it put back in. I do not put new registrants in their own user group and am able to pick out spammers by their names (since none of them actually enter a real name, or even one resembling one). Unless I'm using it incorrectly, there is no way to ban/remove them and report them until after they make their first post.

[kevbentz]

After banning/deleting posts and reporting, I see this error at the top of the forums (I put the xxx/xxx in there):

Warning: fetch_template() calls should be replaced by the vB_Template class. Template name: navbar in [path]/includes/functions.php on line 4097

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in /xxx/xxx/public_html/includes/functions_ghsom.php(1067) : eval()'d code on line 4

Warning: fetch_template() calls should be replaced by the vB_Template class. Template name: glowhostspamomatic_bsc in [path]/includes/functions.php on line 4097

[GlowHost.com]

Originally Posted by kevbentz

I'd like to see it put back in. I do not put new registrants in their own user group and am able to pick out spammers by their names (since none of them actually enter a real name, or even one resembling one). Unless I'm using it incorrectly, there is no way to ban/remove them and report them until after they make their first post.

I don't think most or many people use their names as a forum username, at least on most boards.

We are going to bring back the user banning option in version 2.5. It will be a couple months though as we are working on other projects at this time.

Originally Posted by kevbentz

After banning/deleting posts and reporting, I see this error at the top of the forums (I put the xxx/xxx in there):

Warning: fetch_template() calls should be replaced by the vB_Template class. Template name: navbar in [path]/includes/functions.php on line 4097

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in /xxx/xxx/public_html/includes/functions_ghsom.php(1067) : eval()'d code on line 4

Warning: fetch_template() calls should be replaced by the vB_Template class. Template name: glowhostspamomatic_bsc in [path]/includes/functions.php on line 4097

Sounds like a conflict with another mod or a problem with a customized template.

Originally Posted by PBRiot

Hi, installed it on 4.1.2, and when someone (anyone) tries to post a reply, I get the following error:

Warning: require_once(includes/functions_ghsom.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in [path]/includes/functions_newpost.php(443) : eval()'d code on line 5

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'includes/functions_ghsom.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home4/hustlepa/public_html/pbriot/includes/functions_newpost.php(443) : eval()'d code on line 5



As soon as I disable this SOM plugin, it goes back to normal.

Make sure you have uploaded the files exactly as described in the readme file for this mod. Sounds like you did not upload a file to the correct location.

[sweetguy2004]

hey thanks buddy! nice hack but can you tell me how to stop threads & post to get moderated
its totally wastage of time to approve threads everyday.

[GlowHost.com]

Originally Posted by sweetguy2004

hey thanks buddy! nice hack but can you tell me how to stop threads & post to get moderated
its totally wastage of time to approve threads everyday.

Check your settings for this mod. You should not need to be moderating posts every day. You can even completely disable moderation functions if you like.