Anti-Spam Options - Spambot Stopper - Prevent Spambots from Registering

What is it?
----------------------------
This mod rejects registrations where the form is filled out in less than a minimum time. You can configure one of the following actions to be taken when an automated registration is detected:

- Show a "No Permissions" page
- Display the "Successful Registration" message but without creating an account
- Redirect the user to any URL you choose
- Reload the registration page with an error message of your choosing

You can also provide a list of email addresses to be notified each time a registration is blocked.

Added for version 1.1.1: Time delay enforcer, maximum time option, time limits to cut down on email notifications, posting to a thread.

In the future, I'd like to add some simple logging and statistics, and a summary type of email notification (because people seem to quickly get tired of the single emails).

Note: I coded this myself from scratch, but I would like to acknowledge a couple of previous mods that used this same idea, by users Calorie and noppid, and maybe others. In any case, I believe this one adds some features that the others don't have.

Other advantages: no ads or links, no abuse of update notifications, no disappearing features, no threats to delete the mod (it will never be deleted, at least by me). Also, translations are allowed.

Installation:
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1) If you have "Is Bot", "Stop the Registration Bots", "Spammers Suck!", or another mod that works on registration time, note any admincp settings for that mod then uninstall it.

2) Import the product XML file from the Product Manager.

3) Go to Settings > Options > Spambot Stopper Options and configure the desired settings.

4) IMPORTANT: try to register a new user to make sure that there are no problems with humans registering. If you want, you can also temporarily set the minimum time to a higher value (like 60 seconds) and test to see if the spammer rejection is working.



History:
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1.1.1 (Feb 16, 2013)

• Added timer for enforcing minimum time
• Added maximum registration time limit
• Added time limits for email notifications
• Added posting notificatiosn to a thread

1.0.1 (Feb 01, 2013)

• Fixed bug
• Added check for fake timestamps

1.0 (Jan 31, 2013)

• Initial Release

[kh99]

Originally Posted by Steve-Hoog

I'm on vB 4.1.4 I see nothing about ReCAPTCHA in User Registration Options, just this PCRE thing under Username Regular Expression.

I am certain now your Hack is blocking, but I'm getting no notifications. I fiddle with it and look around at other areas.

Click on "Human Verification Options" under The Settings menu on the left in the admincp. What you described is definitely the reCAPTCHA human verification. Then PCRE shouldn't cause anything to change on the registartion page.

As for the notifications, make sure you've set "Send Email Notification For Each" to Yes, and that your email address is correct (and also, "Post Notification to Thread" to Yes for thread posting). Also, if you entered anything for "Limit Notifications By Registration Time", maybe try taking it out temporarily and leaving the field blank, just to see if that changes anything.

I haven't tested it except with the latest vb4.2.0, so I guess it is possible that there's an issue with earlier versions.

[Steve-Hoog]

When I trigger your Hack block I get this:

Here:
No Users Matched Your Query
You did not specify a username for your post.\n

Instead of the URL redirect I entered and no notifications, still working on it.

[kh99]

Originally Posted by Steve-Hoog

When I trigger your Hack block I get this:

Instead of the URL redirect I entered and no notifications, still working on it.

Did you enter a userid in the "Notification User ID" field (at the end of the Spambot Stopper options)? That might be it - it just needs the iserid of someone to post as (such as your own username).

If that's the problem then I guess I need to check for a blank field there before trying to post a notice.

Edit: sorry, that field takes a userid (number), not a name.

[Steve-Hoog]

I entered my ID and it converted it to 1.

I pulled that option and the email notification then did a test registration with 80 seconds and did't get blocked.

Give me a bit more to work on it, not giving up yet.

[kh99]

Originally Posted by Steve-Hoog

I entered my ID and it converted it to 1.

I'm not sure what you mean - it shouldn't get converted.

I pulled that option and the email notification then did a test registration with 80 seconds and did't get blocked.

Give me a bit more to work on it, not giving up yet.

What do you have your min and max times set to? I have it set so that if the difference between the min and max times isn't at least 60 seconds it will ignore the max. I did that because otherwise I thought it was too easy to set it so that there was no time window (or the window was too small). But now that I look at it, it isn't obvious unless you click on the help icon next to that option.

To be honest the max time is probably not useful in stopping bots at this point. I wanted to add it so that there was something preventing reuse of old timestamps, but it's almost certain that no one is trying to do that at this point.

If you can't get it to work, there are a couple other mods that work the same way that you could try (although I think this is the only one for vb4 that posts notices to a thread).

[Steve-Hoog]

At first I did the default of 20, but to test I set it at 80.

I changed to answer verification and turned yours off, I want to see what happens there first and then come back to yours.

Yes the ID was converted to 1, I even did it again because I was like WTH is a 1 doing there and it instantly took it back to 1 again.

[kh99]

Originally Posted by Steve-Hoog

Yes the ID was converted to 1, I even did it again because I was like WTH is a 1 doing there and it instantly took it back to 1 again.

Oh, right - that's probably because the field is set to "positive integer", so if you try to enter anything other than that it ignores your input and goes back to what was there before. In any case, if your userid is 1, that's what you want.

[Steve-Hoog]

It doesn't matter how many times I enter my real ID, I hit save and it goes to 1 everytime.

I have to leave for lunch and do a little work later, I will get through this. It's probably more me than anything, give 24 hours and I'll let you know what's up.

[kh99]

Yeah, that's kind of my mistake in that the field type is set to "positive integer" and so it will change to 1 if something invalid is entered (so there's no way to leave it blank). But if you're trying to enter another number (including only the characters 0-9) it should work (I mistakenly said before that it should be a "user name", but it can only be a number).

[rhody401]

Thanks for creating this great mod. We switched from a similar one that keeps changing names, and you have all the features that it had - and even more.

Keep up the great work!:up: