Help with website message board

[Moldiver]

I have been running a message board on my site for a few months now and only recently post have been getting made, as soon as a few posts were made a load of people who i can only assume are bots have arrived and started posting porn links. I am using phpbb and have got it set so that you have to go through some security mesuares before posting, activating an email and typing on one of those letter/number combos but still i keep getting these posts.

Anyone know how to stop it?

[GreatKingRat]

Which kind of message board is it? phpbb?

Edit: Nevermind, I can't read. I set up a phpbb message board which gets zero spam, I'll take a look at that and get back to you.

[Moldiver]

Want to get rid of it by thursday casue ive got a presentation of this site at uni and apprently they like to have a look at the site. Can't have that if theres hot teens wanting them.

[GreatKingRat]

I solved the problem by disallowing access to the forum in my robots.txt. Absolutely no spam, but obviously the forum doesn't appear in Google.

[Bobzilla]

The letters numbers combos can be beaten by bots these days quite easily. I ended up having to make user accounts admin authorised and asked people to email to let me know they'd applied. Really unuser friendly but it worked.

Stuck a wee script in to strip out unauthorised users after 7 days from the database and I never had to deal with them again.

Originally Posted by GreatKingRat

I solved the problem by disallowing access to the forum in my robots.txt. Absolutely no spam, but obviously the forum doesn't appear in Google.

I did try that before hand but I couldnt do without the search engine hits

[GreatKingRat]

Originally Posted by Bobzilla

I did try that before hand but I couldnt do without the search engine hits

It's the only thing I've tried in phpbb that's proven to be 100% successful, which is a shame.

You could maybe try just blocking access to the registration page, but I'm guessing if they can find your forum then they can register. (Otherwise the solution is just too simple.)

[Jon Ashley]

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewt...?f=16&t=552845

^ install that. Should stop them.

[Zero]

An effective way to fight this is just to add something non-standard to the registration form. The bots are configured to recognise PHPBB sites - it's unlikely that anyone will target yours in particular. Just add a very simple check such as 'What is 1+1' and you'll throw them off the scent.

[m0nkeymafia]

Originally Posted by Zero

An effective way to fight this is just to add something non-standard to the registration form. The bots are configured to recognise PHPBB sites - it's unlikely that anyone will target yours in particular. Just add a very simple check such as 'What is 1+1' and you'll throw them off the scent.

If you put such a test on the form, do it as an image in the same way as a regular captcha works and don't make it a static image, generate a new problem each time. Captchas such as this are very effective.

[Moldiver]

Originally Posted by Zero

An effective way to fight this is just to add something non-standard to the registration form. The bots are configured to recognise PHPBB sites - it's unlikely that anyone will target yours in particular. Just add a very simple check such as 'What is 1+1' and you'll throw them off the scent.

How would i do that?

[m0nkeymafia]

1. Define problem and answer
2. Store answer in session
3. Generate image for the problem
4. Display image with rest of form
5. On submission, validate the answer with the answer stored in the session
6. If correct, proceed. If wrong, return to 1.

[Metalcherry]

I had this problem,
on phpbb there is a mod called the RAC mod, and this abolished all bots.
i moved over to phpbb and within 5 minutes i had 68 posts by bots
If you type in RAC mod in google you will see a thread from phpbb which gives you a lot of good advice about how to stop bots

[Jon Ashley]

I posted the link to the RAC mod in my post above.

[Moldiver]

Anyone know where and how to install this?

[Metalcherry]

ooops soz jon, couldnt click links in work so couldnt see what the link was for

im guessing its a paid hosting website?
if so you need to set up FTP. the instructions for the RAC mod is quite simple, it tells you what files you need to edit, just edit what it says (i just copy the line it says to find and add their additions after or before it as it says, its really quite simple but can be fiddley) and save and if yoiu are phpbb3, go into your admin section and clear the cache.
Always make sure you have taken a backup of the website though incase things mess up - it does happen!
at the top of the instructions it will tell you what files to edit - as far as i remember it was quite a simple mod.

you just need to edit the below three files

includes/usercp_register.php
language/lang_english/lang_main.php
templates/subSilver/profile_add_body.tpl

if you need any help just give me a shout