Anti-Spam Options - vbStopForumSpam

vbStopForumSpam

Mod of the month winner October 2009.... That cant be bad :up:

Apologies in advance, this is a copy of the 3.6/3.7/3.8 mod that has been verified to work in 4.0 (its so that I dont get a billion PMs asking if it works in 4.0)

This provides access to a RBL type system for forum admins, listing known spam IP / email / usernames. The RBL database is provided by www.stopforumspam.com. You do NOT need an API key from the website in order to access the database. only to submit data if you should wish to do so.

At the point of user registration, the mod checks if the IP number / provided username / email addresses appear on a block list and can block the registration.

Whilst this isnt the most perfect way to stop all forum spam, its another step that spammers have to overcome.

What it does

It checks with a remote database of known forum spammers. Their IP number, email address and forum username are tested and based on your configuration, you can reject / log / accept user registrations based on what you get back.

This version doesnt have
- whitelisting or the ability to submit users to the database but it will within the next week.
- automatic user deletion / post / PM purging. There are good tools out there already, this does something else.

Instructions are included in the installation.txt file - PLEASE read it first and dont forget to actually upload the files in the upload folder, otherwise it WILL kill your registration progress and you wont see the log file options in admincp.

Changes to vB
- 3 new database tables
- 2 database table alternations
- No new templates.
- 2 Hook (register_addmember_process & register_addmember_complete)

Ive tested it but had feedback that it works with versions as old as 3.6.2... Support should go back to older versions, as long as they have hook support for register_addmember_process / register_addmember_complete

For code to submit spammers to the database, check this post for code changes
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=288

Reported to work
- 3.6.1, 3.6.2, 3.6.9, 3.6.10, 3.7.0, 3.7.1, 3.7.2, 3.7.3, 3.74, 3.80, 3.81, 3.82, 3.83, 3.8.4, 4.0beta3, 4.0 Gold, 4.2pl1,2

Installers should remember to refresh their ACP navigation window when they first install it so they can see the new log file menu item.

REQUIRES MySQL 4.1.1+

There is a small mod, coded by Wired1 that will allow you to submit spammer details to the database from the admin control panel, here https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=289 This relies 100% on javascript being enabled and makes no tests that it is enabled.

You need to have an API key from www.stopforumspam.com in order to submit data, its free and easy to get... You DONT need an API key in order to use this mod however, only to submit spammer data.

Issues are
- The usergroup permissions / view details etc DONT work. I jumped the gun and put the permissions controls in there before I put the code in. Please delete the includes/xml/bitfield_vbstopforumspam.xml file and rebuild your postbit

Installation
- Follow the instructions in the zip file, that includes the file upload the correct folders.

Please click Installed

The original thread is at https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=176481 where there is a wealth of knowledge about the mod, please ask questions in there.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by tommac3

I found a bug ... if you have the facebook turned on it wont let you register as it thinks you are a spammer.

Easy fix: Disable Facebook connect. It causes more problems than it's worth anyway. As far as I'm concerned. it's just a backdoor waiting for hackers.

[MichaelDance]

Thanks very useful Mod I installed and i LOVE IT

[Louva-Deus]

Originally Posted by radmoose

One question.. is anyone getting valid usernames and/or email addresses in their log?

Unregistered	2009-12-24 08:32:14	EMAIL	202.116.160.89	Result on field ip - 202.116.160.89 - Spammer and rejected by policy
Unregistered	2009-12-24 07:40:14		64.191.50.99	Result on field ip - 64.191.50.99 - Spammer and rejected by policy
etc...

Originally Posted by pedigree

The "Unregistered" username could be a misconfigured bot

http://www.stopforumspam.com/search?q=unregistered

Originally Posted by Lore Master

The Unregistered displays when the username field is left blank when the form is sent. The REMOTERR dislays when the email field is left blank. For some reason these started showing up in vB 4.0.

My workaround: to check for a blank username and email fields and if either are empty bypass the stopforumspam check, as vB will send the user back to complete these fields anyways. Just a work-around, I tested it and it seemed to work correctly.

Go to plugins and open the vbstopformspam plugin for register_addmember_process. Select edit, and highlight the code. Paste this over it:

if (!empty($vbulletin->GPC['username']) AND !empty($vbulletin->GPC['email']))
{
				$sfsPurged = false;
				require_once('includes/functions_vbsfs.php');
				sfsProcess();
}

In case anyone is still having this problem I have a bit of code that will prevent quite a few invalid submission problems. Lore Master made a great contribution with his code suggestion but it needs to go one step further to deal with all the strange things being submitted to the Stop Forum Spam database. For instance, it isn't overly helpful to the community for a slew of 'Unregistered' submissions to be posted on the website. They are invalid and never should have been submitted.

To stop this from happening we need to do more than check for empty username and email fields. So instead we need to let vBulletin handle the invalid form data and only run the vbStopForumSpam check if a valid registration is submitted. The forum software checks to make sure all the required fields are filled in, that the email address submitted is valid, and various other things, so we don't need to repeat work that has already been done.

To accomplish this input the following code into the 'register_addmember_process' hook for the vbStopForumSpam plugin and replace what is already there.

// $errors = vb 3.0.0+ support
// $userdata->errors = vb 3.6.1-4.0.x support
if (empty($errors) AND empty($userdata->errors))
{
				$sfsPurged = false;
				require_once('includes/functions_vbsfs.php');
				sfsProcess();
}

This allows vB to operate like it normally would when handling registration attempts and only passes data on to the vbStopForumSpam mod if the registration form has been filled out properly. This clears a lot of nonsense from the log records and it saves lookup time and server resources. It might even save the Stop Forum Spam website a little bandwidth.

Finally, this helps to reduce any accidental blocking of legitimate users from registering on your site, either locally or through being mistakenly added to the Stop Forum Spam database, which lists email as well as IP addresses. Remember that virtually none of the people added by mistake will know to come to the Stop Forum Spam website to get their information removed so they can register on a forum they want to join.

HTH

LD

[howard007]

How do you whitelist a person when they are not spam? I don't see this in the file docs.

Thanks!

[MagiKelly]

Just get their details and create the account manually. A bit of a faff but so rare in my experience that it is not a problem.

[BrightStar]

Some of my users are trying to register via facebook and get this error?

Result on field email - [REMOTEERR] Unverfied and rejected by policy

[Charlie98902]

I was getting more than a few users via email stating they were marked as a spammer and did manually register them but I don't have time to do this always so I went with the other mod like this - https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=239307 This is a great add-on but a headache right now.

[pzet]

Thank you for this excellent mod

Absolutely fantastic, a must for every serious forum admin.
Helped me to get rid of some of the "bad guys".

Nominated

[howard007]

I really don't get it. Why wouldn't the programmer for this awesome mod. at least allow one to whitelite an ip? This is such a good mod and is really missing this vital option.

[KProjects]

Has anyone noticed this on their vbstopforumspam logs?

This is the user and email:
#file_links[C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\Base\MarlboroKey\Ma rlboroKey.txt,3,S] [url=#file_links[C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\Base\MarlboroURL\Ma rlboroUrl.txt,1,L]]#file_links[C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\De

It allowed registration for a couple of them and blocked a couple based on ip. I'm not showing any new users however..