Spam bots and new registrations

[dmark101]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to let everyone know that since Saturday, the board has had an average of 300+ spam bot registrations.

This morning when I logged onto the board, I had to deal with 359 such registrations. That total is just from overnight. I check things about 3 to 4 times a day, with an average gap of 2-3 hours between checks. During each check, we typically receive about 50-100 new spammers trying to get onto the board.

None of these totals take into consideration what Transeau is able to filter out before they even have the chance to sign up. I'm certain that what he sees on his end is higher.

The drawback to this is that sometimes a real person who is trying to sign up, gets caught in our sweeps.

For that, I apologize. I know there are some new people on the board who had to contact me via the admins email account in order to finish their registrations; I am glad you were able to finalize your registrations and become a part of our community.

If anyone knows of a friend or someone on Facebook who is having problems signing up for the board, please let me know, whether it be in this thread or the PT Facebook page. I also belong to a couple of other Probe FB pages as well. Any private information, like email addresses, please share that with me via PM or through the admins email account.

Thanks for making this community what it is and sorry for any inconveniences.

[John93PGT]

I remember the problems I had. Why are there spam bots?? On a forum that seems to be seldom now from what it was before...

I don't get it, do they make money out of it or is it just annoyance?

[Zepticon]

They spam with advertisement, fake sites, etc etc, to etiher get you to click an add, or to get your info. And since they are runnin og private computers infected by viruses, they are cost free for the spam network. So there is a bit of money in it yes

[SuperSquid]

If you can add a type in response that they would have to look up that would slow them down without pissing off someone who is legitimate.

[dmark101]

If you can add a type in response that they would have to look up that would slow them down without pissing off someone who is legitimate.

there is already a CAPTCHA in place for new registrants. bad thing is, some bots have scripts with a lot of the common phrases used by most sites.

[SuperSquid]

yes, this is in addition to the captcha. Just a semi-simple extra line in the registration process that requires the user to type in the answer to a question. Since no other website uses the same question, it stops the bots until someone writes a new script specifically for this one. When that happens, you change the question.

[Zepticon]

I have an extra question on all of my forums... something like this:
Q: Name the missing season: Atumn, winter, spring and ?
A: Summer

Or even "harder":
Q: What car is this forum about?
A: Ford Probe

[dmark101]

556 of them this morning when i logged in. geez.

[hppwdn]

One of the drifting forums has you answer random questions about drifting just to finish the registration.

[dmark101]

470 when logging in today.

[branscoset]

Time to pull out the big guns.

[dmark101]

536 this morning. ugh.

[SuperSquid]

add the custom challenge question to the registration process....it'll cut down on them quickly.

[Transeau]

D - hit me with the IP's or ranges if you are seeing common ones. I can add them to the firewall.

[mach1soldier]

Just wanted to say thanks to whomever let me get on through facebook. I must have been mixed in with the other 556 lol.

Can you ask two or three questions?