Anti-Spam Options - Spambot Stopper - Prevent Spambots from Registering

What is it?
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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.

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:
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1.0.1 (Feb 1, 2013)

• Initial Release

[Max Taxable]

By the way this mod DOES act first in line, the check is at registration submit - this occurs in order, BEFORE the native human verification and other anti-spam mods.

It renders a good many of them obsolete, for use against the bots themselves - not for the human spammers though.

I've seen this dozens of times - someone installs this then starts getting alot of failed registration reports. They never had these before, and never had any idea bot registration attempts were so prevalent.

[oldengine]

Thank you for the above reply as I was wondering there for a bit. I am very much aware of bots, thank you.

I never see many of the bots because what I am doing more or less works. The built-in math questions have done very well, but there are a few crazy bots from Korea and Japan that must do some manual intervention to get through. The total number of bots that are out there that we never see must be overwhelming.

I'll mark this installed and keep watch because you never know when a quake will happen. In the end, I think we are all stuck with manual approval.

[ozzy47]

No, you can prevent most of the bots, without manually approving the members as they sign up.

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by oldengine

Thank you for the above reply as I was wondering there for a bit. I am very much aware of bots, thank you.

I never see many of the bots because what I am doing more or less works. The built-in math questions have done very well, but there are a few crazy bots from Korea and Japan that must do some manual intervention to get through. The total number of bots that are out there that we never see must be overwhelming.

I'll mark this installed and keep watch because you never know when a quake will happen. In the end, I think we are all stuck with manual approval.

Ozzy and I have secured many vB installations against spam including our own sites, and these installations get no spam. And they are secured without any moderating of new accounts, pictures, puzzles, games, nothing to annoy legitimate registrants. And all stealth, with no evident human verification and no "gotcha" messages for the spammers.

[mdawg]

How about making this for vb 5 - vb5 is the wave of the future!

I was stuck in vb3 for years but now that I've upgraded to vb5 over all I am glad I made the move.

[oldengine]

Good luck putting a million posts on vB5.

[Kestryll]

I know this is an old mod but I'm hoping someone who has installed it has some insights on a problem I'm having.

This blocks anywhere from 500 to 2000 spam bots a night on my forum which is great but periodically it blocks a legit registration with this message:

a registration attempt was rejected because the form was filled out in less than 10 seconds (1495254543 seconds). The registration form info was as follows:

That's a lot of seconds and well over 10, by a few thousand days actually.

Anyone have an idea why this is happening?

Thanks!