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:
----------------------------
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 apsrfvb4

kh99,
Can you explain the setting for Force Wait for Minimum Time
How does it also not force the spambots to wait for same amount of time?

It uses javascript to prevent the "Complete Registration" button (the submit button) from being pressed until the minimum time has passed. But a spambot doesn't press the button to submit the form (and probably just ignores the javascript) , so it doesn't have to wait.

[Bluemax712]

Originally Posted by kh99

It uses javascript to prevent the "Complete Registration" button (the submit button) from being pressed until the minimum time has passed. But a spambot doesn't press the button to submit the form (and probably just ignores the javascript) , so it doesn't have to wait.

Thanks for the quick reply kh99. Can I ask how do they submit the form then ..just curious.

[kh99]

Originally Posted by apsrfvb4

Thanks for the quick reply kh99. Can I ask how do they submit the form then ..just curious.

Well, I'm not any kind of expert on spamming software, but anyway: your browser is just a program on your computer that displays web pages. If you're looking at your forum's registration page, for instance, and you press submit, the browser takes all the info you entered in the form and packs it up into an http request, connects to your server, and sends it. But any program can connect to your server and send a request, and it's actually pretty easy to write a program that can send a request that looks exactly the same as one coming from your browser. And if you write your own program you don't have to pay any attention to the submit button or to javascript that enables or disables it, you just send your "fake" request whenever you want.

Anyway, I'm not that great at explaining things like this - I hope it makes some sense.

[Bluemax712]

Yes that helps thanks.

One last question I promise
Limit Notifications By Registration Time

If I set the range to be 0-60 or 1-60
Would I be able to get a message for both successful and denied registrations

[kh99]

Originally Posted by apsrfvb4

One last question I promise
Limit Notifications By Registration Time

If I set the range to be 0-60 or 1-60
Would I be able to get a message for both successful and denied registrations

Yes, if you set the high end of the notification range to be more than the minimum time, you'll get notifications of successful registrations.

[Bluemax712]

Perfect - I have now officially selected yours as my timer-based Mod vs the others.
Mainly cause it has the option to feed the notifications to a thread.

Thanks much

[kh99]

You're welcome.

Yeah, when it comes to timer-based anti-spambot mods, there's a choice of 3 that I know of for vb4. There are a few people who seem unhappy about this being one of them, but at the time I created it, one of the other two had been deleted by the author and the other had a problem and wasn't working. Since then, the deleted one has been restored and the other one was fixed, but this one's here now and I'm not going to abandon the people who installed it, or remove it just because someone else wants a monopoly on the idea. But having said that, I have no reason to encourage people to use mine over another one, so I think some of those unhappy people are imagining a competition that doesn't exist.

Anyway, feel free to ask any other question or suggest features. I have another update in the works which should have some logging and stats, and maybe a few other things.

[Bluemax712]

Sorry - I guess I lied about another question

I was able to get the first message logged to a thread
but haven't been able to get anymore since to appear
though the new ones do show up in an email.

Is it a one or the other option? any ideas on how to troubleshoot this?

[kh99]

Originally Posted by apsrfvb4

Sorry - I guess I lied about another question

I was able to get the first message logged to a thread
but haven't been able to get anymore since to appear
though the new ones do show up in an email.

Is it a one or the other option? any ideas on how to troubleshoot this?

Hmm...well, it's not one or the other, you should be able to get both. But there is something I just remembered - the notification range only applies to the emails. For the thread posting, you'll only get rejection notices (and you should get all of them). So maybe that's the issue?

I kind of threw the thread posting option in there just before releasing that version, and I expect to apply the time limits (or maybe a separate set of limits) to the thread posting in a later version. Sorry if that messes up your plans.

If you are getting rejection emails but no posts, I'm not sure why that would happen, and unfortunately the only thing I can think right now is for me to do more testing to see if I can figure it out. Double check the settings (if you haven't already) to make sure the threadid and userid are correct.

[smirkley]

Originally Posted by kh99

You're welcome.
There are a few people who seem unhappy about this being one of them, but at the time I created it, one of the other two had been deleted by the author and the other had a problem and wasn't working. Since then, the deleted one has been restored and the other one was fixed, but this one's here now and I'm not going to abandon the people who installed it, or remove it just because someone else wants a monopoly on the idea. But having said that, I have no reason to encourage people to use mine over another one, so I think some of those unhappy people are imagining a competition that doesn't exist.

I havent seen any 'unhappiness' or 'imagining' in your thread. Did I miss something?