Miscellaneous Hacks - Enhanced Image Captcha - Stop bots from signing up!

Title : Enhanced Image Captcha

Version : 2.2b

VB Versions : Currently working and tested on 3.8.4 (as of Dec 2014)

Coder : Andy Calderbank & Jason Williams

Purpose : Add extra Image Verification to the registration process, using an alternative system to the Captcha system.

The Enhanced Image Captcha system is a unique system using images versus text to stop spammers signing up to your forum. The script automatically detects images and uses the filename as the title, making adding new images extremely simple. To further improve security, the images are passed through a script which means that none of the images on the screen have file names - and cannot be associated to the question by title alone - and cannot be viewed by trying to access the images directly.

Please note, there is a .htaccess file within the images directory, to keep security tight, this must be kept, without it bots are able to scan the images and make a match, I understand not every server can utilist .htaccess but cannot get around this.

Important : This has been tested on 3.7 and 3.6.2 - as far as I know this should be backwards and forwards compatible.

My thanks go to all the guys who have helped with this, all the suggestions and feedback, all has been take on board and where necessary included in this new version - members in particular are : King Kovifor, Danny.VBT, Lynne and RCK.

Also thanks to ogameclub for the Turkish translated version.

I must thank Opserty too for their hard work in making me understand where I was going wrong!!

New features from original 1.11 release!!

Admin settable options:

• Number of images to display
• Path to image directory (so you can change if you prefer)
• Resize image between 50% - 150% of original image
• Number of images to display before a line break (see History)
• Enable/Disable

Demo : http://www.steadiforum.net/register.php

I hope this is help to the VBulletin community as I know this is a growing problem. I don't fancy the thought of trawling through hundreds of new members deleting stupid usernames and spam posts.

Installation :

1. Upload show.php to your forum root directory (or wherever register.php is).
2. Upload the images/verification directory, this can be moved to the forum root or have the verification name changed, but needs updating in the Enhanced Image Captcha AdminCP options.
3. Import Product - product-enhanced_image_captcha.xml
4. Make sure that you check that the Images Path is correct in AdminCP -> VBulletin Options -> Enhanced Image Captcha.
5. You can also select how many images and what size from the original you would prefer.

Upgrading:

1. Import Product - product-enhanced_image_captcha.xml - overwrite if necessary.
2. Set any options you need in AdminCP -> VBulletin Options -> Enhanced Image Captcha.

Upgrading from v1.xx :

1. Remove the images/verification directory and all images inside.
2. Uninstall the product - Enhanced Captcha Image Verification - important for phrase and template removal!
3. Upload show.php to your forum root directory (or wherever register.php is).
4. Upload the images/verification directory, this can be moved to the forum root or have the verification name changed, but needs updating in the Enhanced Image Captcha AdminCP options.
5. Import Product - product-enhanced_image_captcha.xml - overwrite if necessary.
6. Make sure that you check that the Images Path is correct in AdminCP -> VBulletin Options -> Enhanced Image Captcha.
7. You can also select how many images and what size from the original you would prefer.

Requirements : GD Libraries installed

File uploads : 53 (including images)
Files to Import : 1
New Templates : 2
New Phrases : 15
Uses Hooks : 1
New Queries : 0

History :
v2.0b

• Original Beta release

v2.1b

• Added Enable/Disable Option
• Also added Turkish Translated version
• Added new image page

v2.2b

• Bug Fix : Opera browsers, any number over around 8 images disappears over side of screen, added number of images before line break function to stop this happening

Don't forget you don't have to use the provided images - you can customise these to any you wish - I've used ones that are hopefully universal and everyone will recognise.

[kamcreation]

is there anything similar available for vb 4?

[saini1987]

Stopped working, not showing the images.

Going to disable it now.

[BirdOPrey5]

Right click on one of those broken images and look at the URL it's looking for for the images.

[Dr.CustUmz]

how would we go about changing the image type from jpg to png or gif, i have tried changing jpg inside the product file and the show.php and having my folder full of nothing but png's
(did the same with gif's) but it just gives me an infinate load when i try to go to my register page.

EDIT*
after reading a little about the whole GD rendering from
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.imagepng.php

i tried changing my show php to:

PHP Code:

session_start();
header("Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate");
header("Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT");

require_once('./global.php');
$percent = $vbulletin->options['eic_imgsize'] / 100;
$d = dir($vbulletin->options['eic_imgpath']);
while (false !== ($entry = $d->read())) 
    if (substr($entry,-4) == '.png')
        $answers[] .= $entry; 
$image = $_SESSION['show_images'][$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']-1];
$im = imagecreatefrompng($vbulletin->options['eic_imgpath'].'/'.$answers[$image-1]);

list($width, $height) = getimagesize($vbulletin->options['eic_imgpath'].'/'.$answers[$image-1]);
$newwidth = $width * $percent;
$newheight = $height * $percent;
$thumb = imagecreatetruecolor($newwidth, $newheight);
imagecopyresized($thumb, $im, 0, 0, 0, 0, $newwidth, $newheight, $width, $height);

header("Content-type: image/png");
imagepng($im);
imagedestroy($im); 


i thought that would do it, but seems to still give me an infinate load.

also, this version is new than the one posted in the 3.8 section correct?

[steadicamop]

Before anyone absolutely kills me for not having supported this over the past few years, my forum was hacked, wiped completely clean (including database) and then I just gave up, but have been prompted to restart what I had achieved, so I've managed to recover my user for which I'd lost the password and email account.

I've just tried installing this on VB 3.8.4 and it works great. I haven't have opportunity to read through all the comments but will reply wherever I need to.

I shall now work to incorporate the built-in 5 strike 15 minute feature to aid protection from bots.

I also have a lot better understanding of the coding now and MySQL so hopefully this will help to evolve the plugin.

[X-or]

Originally Posted by steadicamop

Before anyone absolutely kills me for not having supported this over the past few years, my forum was hacked, wiped completely clean (including database) and then I just gave up, but have been prompted to restart what I had achieved, so I've managed to recover my user for which I'd lost the password and email account.

I've just tried installing this on VB 3.8.4 and it works great. I haven't have opportunity to read through all the comments but will reply wherever I need to.

I shall now work to incorporate the built-in 5 strike 15 minute feature to aid protection from bots.

I also have a lot better understanding of the coding now and MySQL so hopefully this will help to evolve the plugin.

glad to hear you're back

this is the greatest and most simple anti spam bot mod for vb3

please could you make a vb4 version of it? none of the available anti spam mods for vb4 comes even remotely close to this