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

[corsacrazy]

im getting 20+ spammers mainly from russia trying to register to my site a day, i have "aproove new sign ups" ON so i can catch them there BUT if this plug in can stop all this then thumbs up. Ill give it a go and report back

[DolphinEcho]

Hi pedigree,

Nice mod you made here, not installed it at the moment but I do have a few questions

1. What happens if www.stopforumspam.com goes offline, does it just hang in the user browser or is there a timeout then continue with registering the user?

2. Is there a way to test it working?

3. If I was to uninstall it for whatever reason will it go back to default?

[rasp187]

Originally Posted by DolphinEcho

Hi pedigree,

Nice mod you made here, not installed it at the moment but I do have a few questions

1. What happens if www.stopforumspam.com goes offline, does it just hang in the user browser or is there a timeout then continue with registering the user?

2. Is there a way to test it working?

3. If I was to uninstall it for whatever reason will it go back to default?

1) It will allow all the registrations access. It won't just hang the attempted registrations.

2) Go to your Logs part of the AdminCP and click the StopForumSpam Log and you will be able to see all the people it has declined and the reason it has done so. On my forum, within about 5 minutes of it being installed, it already had 8-10 spammers/bots on the list for denial of registration.

3) Yes

[segwayon]

What I find odd is the large number of spammers who do successfully register, but who never go to their email to click on and complete the registration process. It's as if they are doing it just to see if the server allows for a new registration of an old spammer account, and if it allows them to register then they just move on because they are using the registration process as a way to check for the presence of an unlocked spammer account without the pitfalls of using the login page.

[Fenriz]

Do I really need to recompile php 5.2.11 with cUrl extension to make this hack working?
If YES, does

--with-curl

enough or we need

--with-curlwrappers

also?

[Miss Chatterbox]

Hi,

Would just like to say I have installed this mod and it is fantastic thank you very much.

I have one small question - In vB Options under Spam Managment it asks you to select which anti spam service to use and gives an option of two - "Akismet" and "Typepad AntiSpam Beta" - which option am I supposed to select?

Thank you again

[surfer2124]

Awesome app I have it installed and it is blocking a ton of spammers each day.

Originally Posted by segwayon

What I find odd is the large number of spammers who do successfully register, but who never go to their email to click on and complete the registration process. It's as if they are doing it just to see if the server allows for a new registration of an old spammer account, and if it allows them to register then they just move on because they are using the registration process as a way to check for the presence of an unlocked spammer account without the pitfalls of using the login page.

I am seeing the same thing on my boards. Some spammers will make it past but never activate there account. very odd

[nogerorob]

Originally Posted by surfer2124

Awesome app I have it installed and it is blocking a ton of spammers each day.
I am seeing the same thing on my boards. Some spammers will make it past but never activate there account. very odd

I see this type of thing on my blog regularly. I think the important thing to remember is that you're dealing with software more than a human. The spamming software that the person is using is not complete enough to log into whatever free email system they're using, open the mail and click on the link.

I have a board with about 31k users, and we get about one new spammer / spambot attempt a day. My mods are agrieved over having to deal with this on a daily basis. We're probably going to give this mod a shot. If it is very good, we'd consider an annual donation to keep this alive.

Thank you very much to those involved in maintaining this modification :up::up::up:

Rob

[cdill35]

I installed this app. It stopped spam but now when any new members try to register the get a database error and can not register after they click "agree to terms". Any help?

[Halfhidden]

This is a superb mod... Thank you so much for creating it. We have a small membership (about 1500) but just lately we've been getting spm bots join and trying to post. We have Resync in place but they are getting past that.
I suppose we've kicked out about 10 a day at the moment.
I've also applied the API key to share the info with the Stop Spam Forum.