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Can we please add a better kind of captcha to the forum to make it even harder for these spam bots?

aborersummer wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 8:45 am Knowing that I would have some time to acclimate to PureBasic, I went online to hunt for some code samples and came upon the following. It seems to be neatly organized, and after I discover which settings govern which features, using it should bedrift hunters rather simple.

Lol, you just outed yourself as bot...

We will tolerate them: they will evolve so much that it will be impossible to discern. Just a bots generation will do the bug not to insert an ad link, and will keep this bug. Then nobody could know if it is a bot or a human, captcha or not captcha...

They will even succeed in putting a link in a QRCode in the image of an avatar...

Looks like a new wave of "write nonsense answers to whatever topic"-spambots is doing their crap. Reported 3 today and a handful yesterday...

There's someone here who I suspect is a bot or spammer because they never post anything about PureBasic, but they do chat "normally" with others. I'm not naming who, but it's strange that they never ask a specific PureBasic question or discuss PureBasic in general (I checked their entire post history). I'm torn between whether they're a spammer waiting to start posting links, or whether they're just a lonely soul needing online friends.

BarryG wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2023 4:23 am ... or whether they're just a lonely soul needing online friends.

Agreed. Or maybe offline friends could be helpful.

NicTheQuick wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:31 pm Can we please add a better kind of captcha to the forum to make it even harder for these spam bots?

Meanwhile a better kind of captcha is unfortunately no solution anymore. Bots are now significantly faster and better than humans in cracking captcha tests:
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/capt ... 89998.html

Double post deleted.

BarryG wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2023 4:23 am There's someone here who I suspect is a bot or spammer because they never post anything about PureBasic, but they do chat "normally" with others. I'm not naming who, but it's strange that they never ask a specific PureBasic question or discuss PureBasic in general (I checked their entire post history). I'm torn between whether they're a spammer waiting to start posting links, or whether they're just a lonely soul needing online friends.

You mean these "Thanks" and "Agree" posts and the ones that generally don't make sense? Spam. Report them. Also most of these bots have a website linked to their account.

jacdelad wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2023 1:53 pmYou mean these "Thanks" and "Agree" posts

No, they post general chit-chat with links to other tech sites and things like that. Not just one-word answers.

I remember solving this problem around 2004.... Use random numbers in a drag and drop match game with PRNG rotation imposed on bitmap server-side(with a image lib that doesn't have a lot of CVEs). Unless you're a major traffic domain they won't write custom code for your stuff.. Users will complain about inconvenience, though...

The bots are more annoyance to me, personally... I'm not ignorant to the fact that malware and fraud are still using social engineering(effectively) ~34 years later, though... That's more of a end-user problem than a spam-is-too-advanced problem, though...

BarryG wrote: Sun Aug 13, 2023 12:09 am

jacdelad wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2023 1:53 pmYou mean these "Thanks" and "Agree" posts

No, they post general chit-chat with links to other tech sites and things like that. Not just one-word answers.

They do. I reported a bunch of these answers from one bot. The bot registered and immediately answered "Thanks", "Will try that" and whatever to 5 threads. This was 2 days ago. The username was WilliamSomething (forgot the second part), but the user is deleted now. Some mod took care of it.
They...evolve. Immediately posting the spam links is outdated (though it still sometimes happens). They out them into their signatures or write some nonsense with a link in one word. The latest ones post the replies I described above, wait some time and then spam the forum with their links.

However, it annoys me.

I feel like I match your selection criteria perfectly !

What a problem, these bots... Especially when they are more advanced than me!

The problem is not that big in other (alao phpbb) forums which means the stubborn of dent incesrting captha and sruff like that make no sense
..

Olli wrote: Sun Aug 13, 2023 10:09 am I feel like I match your selection criteria perfectly !

What a problem, these bots... Especially when they are more advanced than me!

Nah...we know you're a good bot.