FAKE SPAM POSTS

[Derek]

@Kaeru Gaman, thank you.

[Kaeru Gaman]

Do many bots get through that "Type the WORD ( or type the NUMBER ) in the image box?" defense...

not that much, but their possibilities are growing.

I think, something like "enter the result of the calculation in the picture"
and the picture shows e.g. " 5 + 2 + 7 "
will help quite a while, because normal bots would enter "5+2+7" instead of "14"

[Derek]

Or even just general questions like "how many letters in the alphabet" etc, just in case the bots get a numerical parser.

[ricardo]

Or even just general questions like "how many letters in the alphabet" etc, just in case the bots get a numerical parser.

The alphabet in english, spanish, german, french?

Its not the same.

[Derek]

Or even just general questions like "how many letters in the alphabet" etc, just in case the bots get a numerical parser.

The alphabet in english, spanish, german, french?

Its not the same.

True, just needs to be questions that have specific answers.

I suppose then you will get spelling mistakes so maybe not quite a good idea after all.

[Brice Manuel]

I finally chose to set up a "New Members" group that users got assigned to as soon as they validated their e-mail address. Users in the "New Members" group could post messages, but those messages were hidden until a moderator or administrator approved them. After five approved posts, users are automatically promoted to the "Member" group whos messages don't need approval before they become visible.

That is a very good idea. I will have to see if I can implement that in the freebie forum service that I use.

[PB]

>> general questions like "how many letters in the alphabet"
>
> The alphabet in english, spanish, german, french?

Depends if it's the english, spanish, german or french forums.

[ricardo]

>> general questions like "how many letters in the alphabet"
>
> The alphabet in english, spanish, german, french?

Depends if it's the english, spanish, german or french forums.

Mmm... this is an english forum and i dont remember how many letters have the english alphabet (22? 24?)... and maybe even people that speak english as first language they don't remember too he he

[Brice Manuel]

Mmm... this is an english forum and i dont remember how many letters have the english alphabet (22? 24?)..

In the US it depends. In civilized states, we use 26 letters for the English alphabet. In third-world states, they use less:

Kentucky only uses 16, Alabama uses 20, West Virginia only uses 12.

The Pine Barren region, the Ozark region and the Applachain region only use 5 (There is a new theory that they actually use 9 and its the lack of teeth that make it sound like 5, but 5 is still the number of letters officially recognized).

[Derek]

Mmm... this is an english forum and i dont remember how many letters have the english alphabet (22? 24?)..

In the US it depends. In civilized states, we use 26 letters for the English alphabet. In third-world states, they use less:

Kentucky only uses 16, Alabama uses 20, West Virginia only uses 12.

The Pine Barren region, the Ozark region and the Applachain region only use 5 (There is a new theory that they actually use 9 and its the lack of teeth that make it sound like 5, but 5 is still the number of letters officially recognized).

[Trond]

Mmm... this is an english forum and i dont remember how many letters have the english alphabet (22? 24?)..

In the US it depends. In civilized states, we use 26 letters for the English alphabet. In third-world states, they use less:

Kentucky only uses 16, Alabama uses 20, West Virginia only uses 12.

The Pine Barren region, the Ozark region and the Applachain region only use 5 (There is a new theory that they actually use 9 and its the lack of teeth that make it sound like 5, but 5 is still the number of letters officially recognized).

In civilized countries we use 29.

[Tipperton]

I posted this in another thread on these forums but it seems to fit here too:

The forum I admister also had bot problem even with captcha enabled, so I thought about it a while and came up with a theory of how the bots were able to to get past the captcha test.

My theory was that the bots have copies of the graphics that all the popular forum software uses to create the captcha graphic, rather than attempt OCR on the image, they use the copies they have to figure out what the characters are by comparing the image contents.

This works because most people don't bother to replace the stock captcha images that come with the forum software.

My solution was to create my own set of images of the characters and replace the stock images with them. It seems to work, because the bots are no longer getting through the captcha test.

On that same thread a member (ricardo) said that on the WinAMP forums, new members can't post or see URLs in messages.

This is a good idea and I'm going to see if I can implement the same thing on the forums I administer since most (if not all) spam posts will contain a URL to the site they are advertising.

[Rook Zimbabwe]

I got it! show a simple picture... dog, duck, boat, house etc... kindergarten level stuff and require the correct radio button to be pressed... mix up which location the correct answer appears at eah time.

[Trond]

Fake spam bots aren't a problem. Real spam bots are a problem.

[Rook Zimbabwe]

I know what you mean there is fake stuff everywhere....

I went to the store last night to get some hair stuff... All they had was SHAMpoo!!!

I could not take it any more... I started screaming.. no more SHAM POO!!! I WANT REAL POO!!!



OK like y'all couldn't see where that was going...

Still I think the simple picture thing would work until SPAMbots can do a better job at passin the Turing Test.