Mini Mods - SpamBot Posting Protection

== What this Plugin does ==
The following product will place a hidden blank text box (humans can not see these text box, but Bots can) in your Register, Posting, Replying and Quick Reply forms. When the post is submitted there will be a check done on this hidden field to see if it was filled out. If a bot has filled in the hidden field the post will be rejected and a "Spam Message" will appear.
This is not hi-tech spam prevention, but does work pretty well and does not interfere with human posting in any way. Ive implement it on Forum Extension which i wrote for the MediaWiki system and it worked out pretty good.

== Theory behind the mod ==
Spam bots automatically fill in any blank text fields they "see".
By placing a text field in the posting form and then hiding it (via css, div hiding does not work that well) only bots can see the field, humans can not. So if the field is filled in during form submission it would have to be filled in by a bot and not a human since the human can not see the field. After the post is submitted it will be checked to see if the field is empty or not. If the field is empty the post will go through, if the field has info in it, the submission will die with a Spam Message (not that the bot will read this, but the message can also work as error control).

This mod was inspired by :
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SimpleAntiSpam

This product has been tested on:
vBulletin 3.6.5, 3.7.0


Installation:
Install the plugin via your AdminCP.
AdminCP -> Plugins & Products -> Manage Products -> [Add/Import Product]

There are four template edits which the plugin automatically does for you.
There is a "ReadMe" included which has the edits in there in case you want to know what they are.


Admin Options:
AdminCP ->vBulletin Options -> AWC's SpamBot Protection

• Test SpamBot Field
  This option will "un-hide" the text boxs so you can test.
  _
• Auto Ban Spammer
  When a spambot posts a thread or post they can be automatically banned to the group of your choice.
  _
• How to send Banned message (Admin, Mods, etc.) notifying a bot has been Banned.
  You can automatically send out a PM or Email to selected members notifying them a spambot has been banned.
  _
• What to Check
  You can turn On and Off what you would like the plugin to check, New Registration, New Threads or New Posts.
  _
• Move spam post
  Posts created by a spambot can be placed in a selected forum of your choice.

1.0 to 1.x Upgrade info:
If you have installed 1.0 and are upgrading to 1.x you will have to remove the template edits you made before (sorry about this, wont happen again ).
Search and remove the following from your templates:

PHP Code:

 $awc_bot_fields 


Plugin Version History:

Ver. 1.2 - Dec 25, 2008
- Added
-- AdminCP page
-- Test Option
-- Move spam post to selected forum
-- Redirect option for registration
-- PM or Email banned member name to selected members

- Changed
- How text field was added to Quick Reply (to make compatible with Vb 3.6.x)


Ver. 1.1 - Dec 22, 2008
- Changed to auto template edits
- Added new hidden field to Register form
- Added auto ban option


Ver. 1.0 - Dec 20, 2008
- Add 3 hidden fields (Quote, New Reply and New Thread) and check:
- Manual template edits


Heres the AdminCP section...



Its been a long time since ive dabbled with vbulletin so im sure there are other ways to implement this.

Any feed back would be great.
Enjoy.

_

[GoNz00]

i dont filter the posts, cant see the need if joe blogs cant see it.

just wondering if theres a way to mimic a required field in the hidden option so the script readers see that and assume they have to post in the signup screen

[iMisspell]

Originally Posted by GoNz00

i dont filter the posts, cant see the need if joe blogs cant see it.

Ohh... was just wondering if you might have just to test out the plugin and see how well (or not) it works.

Originally Posted by GoNz00

just wondering if theres a way to mimic a required field in the hidden option so the script readers see that and assume they have to post in the signup screen

Not sure what you mean.
On the registration screen you want to add a "spambot" hidden field under the 'Required' section ?
If so... ive never looked at the vB code for that, but would assume the vB code just checks the fields after they are submitted. When the require fields are visable, during the screen when a person is filling them out, there is nothing special about them. The code which checks them after they are submitted is where the "magic" is done. Could be wrong, will check it out is thats what your looking for.

_

[GoNz00]

i guess having a * next to the box may trick the bots, not sure.

i will turn on the diverted post when im home tonight and we will see whats being stopped

[iMisspell]

Originally Posted by GoNz00

i guess having a * next to the box may trick the bots, not sure.

Maybe, not sure eather.

Originally Posted by GoNz00

i will turn on the diverted post when im home tonight and we will see whats being stopped

If you really feel like testing it out, can you turn that on as you said, but turn off the registration check ?

Like said in the PM.
A quick day test (full 24 hours) with open forum posting (letting guests post with out being logged in) the same code used in a different forum stopped around 70 spam-bot posts. Thats with no protection period, completely open and nothing got by. Im sure the type of bot posting has alot to do with it, maybe i was hit by the dumb ones during the testing


_

[GoNz00]

ok all setup, lets see what happens next

we dont allow guests to post tho so thats got to stay off tbh

[GoNz00]

uvwx993 weoskee@gmail.com
vg286031 vgoldzone20@pc1520.com

they were stopped from signing up in the past 2 days, now i wonder what the 2nd one could possibly want lol

[HaCaoChien]

Could i use it for vbb 3.8.0?

did Anyone do it? :P thanks.

[GoNz00]

i think this has already been added to the spam bot scripts as its no longer working

[HaCaoChien]

Originally Posted by GoNz00

i think this has already been added to the spam bot scripts as its no longer working

It worked fine till now (i dont know exactly but it's still effected with my forum), but i want to use it in my others, it's using vbb 3.8 dont know if it could work, anyone have the answer?

[Daniel Lindberg]

Just installed it on one of my forums which gets horribly spammed so will know pretty quickly if it still works...

Edit: So far it's working very well, moved from 50+ spammers per day to 1 or 2...and they're actual people spamming.