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:
----------------------------
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 chikuru

Yeah it worked(I thought it didnt because of the error message).. Registration was successful but shows errors:
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in [path]/register.php(90) : eval()'d code on line 247
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in [path]/register.php(90) : eval()'d code on line 247

Thanks for posting that, I'm sure I can figure out what's causing that.

Edit: I found the problem - I'll release a fix soon, hopefully sometime today. FYI, it looks like it happens right before redirecting to the forum page, so all registration steps are completed, the only effect would be that the user sees an error instead of being redirected.

[tomshawk]

Installed this on my new site.

site has only been up for a week.
I set the time limit to 25 seconds

And it has already caught over 30 Spammers, not one has gotten through yet.

I love this Mod

Thank you very much

[Bluemax712]

Originally Posted by kh99

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.

Some users take a loooooooong time to fill out registration:
The registration time was greater than the minimum of 22 seconds (169)

Is there a limit on the upper notification range before causing problems?

[kh99]

Originally Posted by apsrfvb4

Some users take a loooooooong time to fill out registration:
The registration time was greater than the minimum of 22 seconds (169)

Is there a limit on the upper notification range before causing problems?

There should not be any upper limit that would cause a problem with any normal registration, unless you set the max time to something low. If someone started then got distracted for a while and went back to it, they might have to start over.

ETA: oh, you meant the upper value of the notification time range? No, I think you should be able to set that as high as you want.

[Bluemax712]

Originally Posted by kh99

There should not be any upper limit that would cause a problem with any normal registration, unless you set the max time to something low. If someone started then got distracted for a while and went back to it, they might have to start over.

ETA: oh, you meant the upper value of the notification time range? No, I think you should be able to set that as high as you want.

Yes I had it set for 180 and didn't get notified of a few new registrations...so I've cranked it up to 600 now to match the post editing timeout.

[tomshawk]

Originally Posted by apsrfvb4

Yes I had it set for 180 and didn't get notified of a few new registrations...so I've cranked it up to 600 now to match the post editing timeout.

Why don't you just set the max time to 0, that disables the max timeout all together.

[kh99]

Originally Posted by tomshawk

Why don't you just set the max time to 0, that disables the max timeout all together.

apsrfvb4 was talking about the "Limit Notifications By Registration Time" setting. You can make it a range, and then it will notify for successful registrations if the top of the range is greater than the min time. But apsrfvb4 was wondering if there was a limit to how high you could set the upper value.

[tomshawk]

Sorry, I guess I misunderstand the question

[kh99]

Yeah, I misunderstood it too, when I answered the first time. That probably didn't help.

[Bluemax712]

As you predicted setting the range 1-600 caused no trouble

Here's one that would have been missed before
- The registration time was greater than the minimum of 22 seconds (252)

Maybe it's my Q&A questions are too tough and causing a delay:
pick the animal that says moo?

(patiently waiting on your next release with more Q&A logging to find out)