Miscellaneous Hacks - Enhanced Captcha Image Verification - stop bots from signing up!!

Title : Enhanced Captcha Image Verification

Version : 1.1

Coder : Andy Calderbank & Jason Williams

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

Why : It would appear that spammers can now "read" the Captcha codes and overcome the verification process.

How : This extra feature uses images which are harder for a spam program/bot to interpret than text characters. The user has a choice of 4 randomly displayed images, and the answer is given below. The user must click on that image to proceed, if the incorrect image is selected an error message is shown. The images are randomly shown (from however many are in the directory - you can have as many as you want, just has to be more that 4!) and are automatically created from the images/verification/ directory - all on the fly. Sample images are included with this release, but you can use your own - I recommend using 100 x 100 pixels, in .jpg format and naming the image with a meaningful title (ie A House.jpg) - the extension is stripped so only the filename itself is shown.

To further enhance 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.

I have been testing this on my forum and have found it to be effective - I cannot guarantee that this will stop all spamming, but this relies more on human input than a computer "reading" the image.

Important : This has been tested on 3.6.2 - I cannot guarantee it will work on anything above, please test with caution - and as always BACKUP FIRST! This will not work on anything below 3.6.0.

Demo : http://www.steadiforum.com/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 the verification/ directory to your images/ folder - make sure .htaccess and show.php are present - otherwise it won't work.
2. Import Product - product-image_verification.xml

Upgrading :

1. Upload show.php to the images/verification/ directory.
2. Import Product - product-image_verification.xml - select Allow Overwrite to enable upgrade.

Requirements : GD Libraries installed

File uploads : 39 (including images)
Files to Import : 1
New Templates : 1
New Phrases : 5
Uses Hooks : 1
New Queries : 0

History :
v1.0 - Original release
v1.01 - Slight code change for forums in sub-directories (thanks go to Barakat for solving this one)
v1.1 - Issue resolved with Windows servers also template clean up for xhtml compliance
v1.11 - Added version check function, minor upgrade.

Done - if you like please click install! (and I won't ask for any donations as long as you click Nominate for MOTM!)

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.

[Narshelia]

Works like a charm for 3.8.7.

Installed.

[montsa007]

Had numerous registrations despite of installing it. Removed

[0ptima]

This is a cool mod, hope it works well for me. On another note, I went to the author's site and it has been hacked! I hope it was not due to this mod.....

[0ptima]

Spammers are getting through and filling out the registration page . I have the hack set to display 8 images, changed all the phrases, the ALT image tag, etc and they still were able to successfully pass through.

[0ptima]

The following was written between the CODE tags so only members can see this

I did some searching on bot software and found one called xrumer. One of the features of this bot is to be able to defeat captchas. If you scroll down to the bottom of this link http://www.botmasterlabs.net/pictocod/ , you will see the images used in this mod! If you are using this mod, please do not use the default images !

[X-or]

So godamm amazing finally the flood of bots was stopped thanks so very much

BTW sometimes it seems that randomly an image doesn't show up and the word "vb secure" appears instead. I have verified by refreshing several times that the 16 images can be displayed correctly so there is not a broken image in particular.

[CharLzarD]

Originally Posted by 0ptima

The following was written between the CODE tags so only members can see this

I did some searching on bot software and found one called xrumer. One of the features of this bot is to be able to defeat captchas. If you scroll down to the bottom of this link http://www.botmasterlabs.net/pictocod/ , you will see the images used in this mod! If you are using this mod, please do not use the default images !

Even so, it will still block lower level bots at the minimum.

Installed, thanks!

[0ptima]

I have been using this mod for a few months now and I am very impressed. I did change the default pictures and did some other tweaks.

[hyperspin]

I REALLY wish this mod worked for v4.x. I think this method is one of the most secure methods after you change all the default images and add a large number of possible images. We changed all the images to be inline with our site and our members have stated they really enjoyed it. The only spammers that we've had it make it through have actually been humans and not bots.

[ChiNa]

Hey all, I was searching for Image Verification for vB 3.8, and this one showed up!
I hope this work for vB 3.8.6 or 3.8.7... I will try befor Click in Installed!

Thank you!