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.

[kylek]

Anyone have the code listed in the first post to submit data, clicking on the link brings up invalid link.


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

[sticheno]

Originally Posted by kylek

Anyone have the code listed in the first post to submit data, clicking on the link brings up invalid link.


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

Also looking for this. Have spent over an hour reading forum posts trying to find a valid link to something that shows how. Frustrating. The software works brilliantly so having this last bit of information somehow hidden is sad.

[sticheno]

Well, of course, we all knew to look at page 69 in this thread and the post by JesterP.

There's the answer.

[sticheno]

Couple hours short of 24, this has stopped over 400 in their tracks. Couldn't be more pleased! Here's a minor modification I recommend that helps the daily ritual of approving users and involves a minor edit to the user.php file. This is for those requiring the user to validate their email and then the admin manually approving:

We're running this on 4.1.0 PL2: line 1754 in user.php (may vary slightly in different versions), replace their mailto link and the following line that tells the IP (never figured out why we'd want to mail someone from the final approval process) and their not very useful IP check and instead point those to Google so you can see where those email addresses appear, and the IP to a decent WhoIs lookup. Most of my spam registrations come from Phillipines, Vietnam, Malaysia, India and my site is topical for something not practice there so this makes it super easy.

$cell[] = "<a href=\"http://www.google.com/search?q=$user[email]\">$user[email]</a>";
$cell[] = "<a href=\"http://whois.domaintools.com/$user[ipaddress]\">$user[ipaddress]</a>";

Of course every time you upgrade this will get wiped, but it's an easy change that really adds some value. YMMV. I'm shutting up now, happy.

[AusPhotography]

<a href="https://www.stopforumspam.com" target="_blank">www.stopforumspam.com</a> seems to be down - anyone else having issues?

Thanks

[imagirlgeek]

Yep, I just started seeing DB Errors, but not sure what's causing it.

[kylek]

Yup, its been down for the last hour. Got the same errors, think its timing out when trying to get on stopforumspam site while its down.

[Delphiprogrammi]

hi,

Yes that site is a little slow but i bet that site get's allot of traffic if i could talk to the owner of stopforumspam.com i would ask him/her if i could help in mirroring it's content i'm on a dedicated server i have gigabytes of space left offcource since it's a spammers blacklist i think the site is often the "target" of online attacks like (D)dos or similar please correct me if i'm wrong.I would provide a mirror for free just to join the fight against the spammers

[Adam H]

Ive been using this mod since VB4 came out and was also using the previous version for vb3, However i have to say its now been removed from all my forums.

Ive seen alot of increases in emails of which genuine users are complaining they can not sign up, this has been the case for some time however ive always just replied to their emails asking them to sign up with a different username and that seemed to work.

However recently i was working on a clients website and he had it installed , he said that he gets around 4 complaints per day all from genuine users, so i thought i would run a little experiment and disable it on a couple of boards for a couple of days, in those days ive seen much better conversions and a much higher posting rate from new members, Also those members have returned and are becoming very good posters. Also the time on the site for each person is much higher .

Spam has not been an issue since disabling this mod , i run the mod "bad Behaviour" and also "VSA advanced permissions based on Post count" basically meaning they can not post links , images and email addresses until they have 20 posts. With these two alone i have had zero spam.

I thought i would write this quickly as ive always loved this mod but there is seriously something wrong when it blocks SO MANY potential members

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by riverwire

Ive been using this mod since VB4 came out and was also using the previous version for vb3, However i have to say its now been removed from all my forums.

Ive seen alot of increases in emails of which genuine users are complaining they can not sign up, this has been the case for some time however ive always just replied to their emails asking them to sign up with a different username and that seemed to work.

However recently i was working on a clients website and he had it installed , he said that he gets around 4 complaints per day all from genuine users, so i thought i would run a little experiment and disable it on a couple of boards for a couple of days, in those days ive seen much better conversions and a much higher posting rate from new members, Also those members have returned and are becoming very good posters. Also the time on the site for each person is much higher .

Spam has not been an issue since disabling this mod , i run the mod "bad Behaviour" and also "VSA advanced permissions based on Post count" basically meaning they can not post links , images and email addresses until they have 20 posts. With these two alone i have had zero spam.

I thought i would write this quickly as ive always loved this mod but there is seriously something wrong when it blocks SO MANY potential members

Were you having it screen for user name?