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 Terrablade

Hey kh99.. Any word on if you are going to add the stats option to show on the forum kind of like how Spam Hammer Series 3 does it? Spam hammer series 3 is nice but 97 usd a year is just pushing the limits. thanks

I don't have any any immediate plans to work on this, but I may in the future. I'm not familiar with the paid version of that other product, and it's not my intention to provide free versions of things people are trying to sell. But I did have plans to add logging of attempts to this product, and then it would be fairly easy to add stats.

Originally Posted by Terrablade

Darn it. not compatible with vb 3.8.7... Can you code it for us vb3 users? thanks.

vb3 version is here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=294651 but I don't think it's quite up to date with the vb4 version.

[mdawg]

I installed Glowhost Spam O Matic onto my 4.2.2 site.

Is it okay to install this mod of yours as well?

[kh99]

Originally Posted by mdawg

I installed Glowhost Spam O Matic onto my 4.2.2 site.

Is it okay to install this mod of yours as well?

I haven't tried it. I had someone tell me a while back in this thread that a feature of spam-o-matic was stopping the "post registration attempts to a thread" feature of this mod from working. I talked to a spam-o-matic guy about making a change to their mod to solve the problem, which they did, but the person who first complained about it said it still didn't work, and I never tried it. So, this mod should work with spam-o-matic, except possibly if you want to have this mod post to a thread and you use the spam-o-matic feature that stops spammers from posting, then you might not see the posts from this mod.

I hope that makes sense. If you decide to try it, let us know if things work ok.

[ForceHSS]

Originally Posted by mdawg

I installed Glowhost Spam O Matic onto my 4.2.2 site.

Is it okay to install this mod of yours as well?

Yes I have both running on my site and same version as yours

[final kaoss]

Interesting mod, any new features planned like a red herring spam trap? Instead of it being on a newreply/newthread area, try to make something similar for the registration?

I ran across this little beauty a few days ago. The Comment Spam Trap is a WordPress plugin that is simple and easy to install. Once installed you just sit back and watch the spam disappear.

When I first installed the plugin I set up the plugin to email me the trapped comments. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t trapping and deleting comments I wanted. It doesn’t. It is very slick in how it works, getting the spam bots to fill in a field that isn’t visible to a regular commenter.

If that field is filled in, the trap is sprung and the spam bots little droppings are flushed from your site.

I’m still using Askimet on all the sites. Since putting the Comment Spam Trap into place I’ve only had one comment come through.

Yes, there are still some spammers that like to do it themselves, go figure. This is where Askimet comes in to put the final death grip on the slippery human touch spam.

[kh99]

Originally Posted by final kaoss

Interesting mod, any new features planned like a red herring spam trap? Instead of it being on a newreply/newthread area, try to make something similar for the registration?

I might have time over the next couple months to work on it, but I'm not sure. I have a half finished version that has logging and is restructured to make it easy to add on features, so if I get that finished you or I or someone could probably add a feature like that.

So I guess it could work by allowing the spammer to register, putting them in a special usergroup, then anything they try to post would post in a special forum?

[sv1cec]

A feature I would be interested in seeing in this beauty (elegant simplicity, that's what this hack is), is to report the country, from which the spammer came. I have the code ready to check an ip2country table in my database, but I have no idea where to insert it and how to pass the value to the email message it sends me.

[kh99]

When I get a chance I'll look at the code and see how difficult it would be to add something like that.

[sv1cec]

I am sorry to report that I have an issue with this.

I had it installed and it was working perfectly , yesterday alone it stopped 340 spam registration attempts.

I tried to add my testing code, which by the way, I'll gladly provide to you, and I have stopped receiving emails for spammers attempts. So, I uninstalled the product, downloaded it again and re-install it, and still no emails. What can be the problem? I tested my email account and the ability of vbulletin to send emails and they both work just fine.

It appears that the program doesn't catch the spammers. I raised the minimum time to 120 sec and I registered a test user, the registration went through fine.

Any ideas will be appreciated.

Further on this, what is strange, is that I do not appear to be bombed with spam registrations!!!!!

[kh99]

That is strange. I can't think of why that would happen. You didn't install any other mods in between?