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The default spam system in 1.6 isn't enough to defend against the hordes of bot signups and resulting spam. I set up a temporary forum and left it for a month and I already had 10,000+ bots sign up and spam it.

The use of third party services and plugins could work, but there are some neat, easy tricks MyBB could employ in its core to stop nearly all bots.

Security Question

A simple field that must be correctly answered on sign-up. Usually very easy (eg "What is the first letter of this website name?").

Hidden Bot-only Field

A signup field hidden via CSS that bots will still fill out, but humans will not. If anyone does fill that field in, deny their signup.


Has anyone else got ideas for better bot protection?
the first is a plugin that work well and the second is already in 1.6 Configuration > Settings > User Registration and Profile Options > Display a hidden CAPTCHA
We have a bunch of anti spam features planned for 1.8, some of which have already been implemented.
(2013-04-29, 03:04 AM)pavemen Wrote: [ -> ]the first is a plugin that work well

I suppose so.

(2013-04-29, 03:04 AM)pavemen Wrote: [ -> ]and the second is already in 1.6 Configuration > Settings > User Registration and Profile Options > Display a hidden CAPTCHA

*squees*
There is also a registration timer that was implemented based on a plugin of mine. Seeing as bots fill out the form much faster than humans do, this plugin attempts to catch bots based on the time between when the form was loaded and submitted.
I've run two forums with a high number of bot registrations/postings. Currently I use Akismet + Fassim + reCaptcha and we haven't seen one in a looooong time. Also, I used bad behavior too but not anymore. I think bad behavior mainly sets up a honeypot, not sure though.

Akismet:
http://mods.mybb.com/view/akismet-(spam-protection)

Fassim:
http://mods.mybb.com/view/fassim-anitspam

reCaptcha:
http://mods.mybb.com/view/recaptcha
Akismet comes with MyBB and reCAPTCHA is a core feature. Smile
(2013-04-29, 05:57 AM)Nathan Malcolm Wrote: [ -> ]Akismet comes with MyBB and reCAPTCHA is a core feature. Smile

I personally think that Security Questions should be pulled into the core as an option.
Check the roadmap guys Wink
Alright I'm satisfied with the replies. Smile Thanks for commenting everyone.