It could be an effective way to stop spam, but is it really needed in MyBB? Spam bots didn't manage to break our captcha yet I guess.
However, the Akismet plugin from Tikitiki would fit the best for MyBB forums.
That means all your users would have to enter in a math answer when they post something.
DennisTT Wrote:That means all your users would have to enter in a math answer when they post something.
That is a great idea for preventing bots! Is anyone using it with MyBB or is it really true that the CAPTCHA is still secure against the evil-doers?
What I meant is that people might get frustrated if they are asked every time they make a post to enter in a code (well I know I would
)
Would it be possible to modify it, so that people have to answer a math question, when registering, but not to answer a question every time that they post?
GrimFinger Wrote:Would it be possible to modify it, so that people have to answer a math question, when registering, but not to answer a question every time that they post?
I have heard of that kind of a system reading other forums while researching this topic. One thing I read said to create a couple hundred very simple questions and serve them randomly when people sign up. This way the bots can't "learn" how to reply to the question. Seems very cool to me.
Every time they post does sound like an inconvenience.
There was also a neat idea about "groups". It said new users went into a group where all their posts have to be reviewed by authorized members before appearing. After a certain number of good posts, their membership changes them into a the permanent group and their posts won't need to be reviewed anymore. Sounds very good, but time consuming for someone and would cause a delay.
Along those same lines, new users can be given reply only privileges until they post good a certain number of times. From my experience this isn't so great, bc our spam attacks included replies, not just new topics.
IN any case, the real hurdles seem to belong in the sign in stage. Otherwise you have a bunch of user profiles to clear out, and they may contain links into their dirty sites.
Any other good ideas?
Are these easy to implement with MyBB?
GrimFinger Wrote:Would it be possible to modify it, so that people have to answer a math question, when registering, but not to answer a question every time that they post?
Then how different would that be from what we already have? (CAPTCHA image). The spammer-bot programmer would just parse the page to find that math formula and calculate its result.
DennisTT Wrote:Then how different would that be from what we already have? (CAPTCHA image). The spammer-bot programmer would just parse the page to find that math formula and calculate its result.
I don't know that it would be any different. I was simply asking.
Well, to answer your question, you'd have to make a modification or plugin to do it.
The easiest way I see it is if you have a plugin that generates a math formula something like:
// this plugin would hook into member_register_end
$rand1 = rand(10, 20);
$rand2 = rand(0, 10);
$randop = rand(0, 1);
switch($randop)
{
case 0: //let's say add
$question = "{$rand1} + {$rand2}";
$answer = $rand1 + $rand2;
break;
case 1: //subtract
$question = "{$rand1} - {$rand2}";
$answer = $rand1 - $rand2;
}
$imagehash = md5($answer);
$regimagearray = array(
"imagehash" => $imagehash,
"imagestring" => $answer,
"dateline" => time()
);
$db->insert_query(TABLE_PREFIX."captcha", $regimagearray);
eval("\$regimage = \"".$templates->get("member_register_regimage")."\";");
And in the member_register_regimage template, you would find:
<img src="captcha.php?action=regimage&imagehash={$imagehash}" alt="{$lang->image_verification}" /><br /><span style="color: red;" class="smalltext">{$lang->verification_subnote}</span>
And replace it with something like:
Please answer the simple math question: {$question}