Administrative and Maintenance Tools - vbStopForumSpam

At the point of user registration, the mod checks if the IP number / provided username / email addresses appear on a block list and can block the registration. This queries the StopForumSpam database (where I am a coder and administrator) to see if a new users IP address/email address/IP number are listed as known spammer sources.

Whilst this isnt the most perfect way to stop all forum spam, its another step that spammers have to overcome.

What it does

It checks with a remote database of known forum spammers. Their IP number, email address and forum username are tested and based on your configuration, you can reject / log / accept user registrations based on what you get back.

This version doesnt have
- whitelisting or the ability to submit users to the database but it will within the next week.
- automatic user deletion / post / PM purging. There are good tools out there already, this does something else.

Currently, I would say this is an beta codebase. Please treat it as such.

Instructions are included in the installation.txt file - PLEASE read it first and dont forget to actually upload the files in the upload folder, otherwise it WILL kill your registration progress and you wont see the log file options in admincp.

This is the exact same version that is on the 3.6 forums because it works with 3.54 to 3.84 (at time of wriing, the latest version)

Changes to vB
- 3 new database tables
- 2 database table alternations
- No new templates.
- 2 Hook (register_addmember_process & register_addmember_complete)

Known to work - tested by me
- vBulletin 3.6.8 on Apache 2.2 / PHP 5.1.2 on Linux using cUrl
- vBulletin 3.7 Gold on Apache 2.0 / PHP 4.4.3 on Windows without cUrl (template changes wont work on 3.7 - thats in the next version with auto template changes)

For code to submit spammers to the database, check this post for code changes
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showp...&postcount=288

Reported in the thread to work
- 3.5.4 3.6.1, 3.6.2, 3.6.9, 3.6.10, 3.7.0, 3.7.1, 3.7.2, 3.7.3, 3.74, 3.80, 3.81, 3.82, 3.83, 3.8.4

Installers should remember to refresh their ACP navigation window when they first install it so they can see the new log file menu item.

REQUIRES MySQL 4.1.1+

If you want to submit data directly from the user admincp to the database, then you can install an addon mod (Coded by Wired1) here https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=288

You need to have an API key from www.stopforumspam.com in order to submit data, its free and easy to get... The code above is a quick hack that changes the pages "form" so that it submits to the database. As its a quick hack, this relies 100% on javascript being enabled and makes no tests that it is enabled.

Please click Installed

[AusPhotography]

Originally Posted by pedigree

You just did, Ill pull the source code and look at this.

Edit : Just fixed it. I'm not sure who editted that api file in the SVN but its fixed now.

Thanks for the prompt fix! :up: We had some people not able to join

The work around was to set...
"Query Connection Errors / What should happen if the remote connection times out when querying the new registration?" to "Allow Registration"

We love SFS!! It has cut our mods workload!

Forum: www.ausphotography.net.au

[brightflash]

Got an SQL Database error message not mentioned in installation.txt.

Specific message emailed me from my vBulletin server:

Database error in vBulletin 3.8.4:

Invalid SQL:
ALTER TABLE usergroup ADD vbstopforumspamviewpermissions INT( 10 ) UNSIGNED DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL;

MySQL Error : Duplicate column name 'vbstopforumspamviewpermissions'
Error Number : 1060
Request Date : Tuesday, September 8th 2009 @ 08:32:31 PM
Error Date : Tuesday, September 8th 2009 @ 08:32:32 PM
Script : http:// www.myurl.com/forums/admincp/plugin.php?do=productimport
Referrer : http:// www.myurl.com/forums/admincp/plugin.php?do=productadd
IP Address : 71.212.191.241
Username : admin
Classname : vB_Database_MySQLi
MySQL Version : 5.1.30

Sorry. I am not conversant with SQL. Is this something I need to "worry" about?

Thanks for your help and thanks for what I hope will turn out to be a great mod!

John

[turbosatan]

first off thank you very much for this plugin it works very very well.

Can i ask for an addition to this so when you delete posts as spam then there is an option to report someone as a spammer

or just a user profile option which allows to report as a spammer to stop forum spam.

Some easy way to add them to the stop forum spam DB easily from within the control panel of the forum.

[pedigree]

brightflash it looks like you reinstalled it without first uninstalling it. Uninstall it and then reinstall it. Failing that, then you will need to edit that table in phpMyAdmin and drop that column from the table before reinstalling.

Failing that, drop me a PM and Ill knock you up a forced removal XML file that you can import to uninstall and cleanup so that you can import it again.

[pedigree]

Originally Posted by turbosatan

first off thank you very much for this plugin it works very very well.

Can i ask for an addition to this so when you delete posts as spam then there is an option to report someone as a spammer

or just a user profile option which allows to report as a spammer to stop forum spam.

Some easy way to add them to the stop forum spam DB easily from within the control panel of the forum.

Sure, I can add that. I have been granted permission from the brother of the guy who wrote "1 click spam cleanup" to use some of his code. This mod-extra will ban a users, delete his PM/posts/threads and submit his details to the database (if the mod/supermod has been granted permissions to do so of course) This is mostly included in the 0.7 source that Im poking and prodding away at, at the moment

[brightflash]

Originally Posted by pedigree

brightflash it looks like you reinstalled it without first uninstalling it. Uninstall it and then reinstall it. . . .

Thanks for the work-around!

Weird!

I had never installed it before.

I'm starting to wonder what's going on with my computer. Here it double-posted my post yesterday. It double-installed vbStopForumSpam . . . (!!!)

Again, thank you.

John

[pedigree]

The stopforumspam.com domain is down at the moment as the site owner forgot to renew the domain. Ive tried to contact him and just hope that hes reading his emails this morning.

[wmelnick]

Originally Posted by pedigree

When you import the XML file?

how about some information, like what file youre importing and what version of vbulletin youre using

Sorry, yes, when I import the XML file into 3.8.4 after the upload had already been done. I tried importing the xml both from my local machine and from the server.

W

Edit: Got it to load by downloading the product xml from the old thread.

[bernie g]

Installed and working perfect, thanks.

I'm new to all of this and have only had my forum up and running for just over a month now. There have been 22 spammers rejected in the last 4 days, not sure if this amount of spammers is the norm for new forums or, I'm doing something wrong lol

[XtremeOffroad]

Originally Posted by bernie g

Installed and working perfect, thanks.

I'm new to all of this and have only had my forum up and running for just over a month now. There have been 22 spammers rejected in the last 4 days, not sure if this amount of spammers is the norm for new forums or, I'm doing something wrong lol

Chances are it's the same bot using different details, (Comment Spammer)
You arent doing anything wrong, They are just persistant littls sob's.
After awhile they will move on,
But not to worry, There will be others on the way, They are like roaches, Once they arrive they just multiply lol
I had the same problem not too long ago.
They have slowed down a bit but will always continue to annoy us for some reason.

Be thankful some Great mods are coming out to help combat them.