spam

pcmattman · Post by **pcmattman** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 6:46 pm

IMHO we just need to upgrade the board. phpBB is a work in progress, it changes often.

I think a spam filter would be good to setup somehow. It's frustrating to have to sift through the spam, especially since it's now coming into the Development and Project Announcments forums.

Another idea might be to have a mod in each time zone. At least then there's a high chance of someone being able to delete the post at any time of day.

chase · Post by **chase** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 11:56 am

So did a little research about additional methods to find spam and I ran across this http://www.tfbw.com/archives/20 . Basically this guy says that most forum bots don't support javascript. I took that idea and made my own implemention. Javascript is now required to register, after registration you don't have to keep it on. For the details of what I did take a look at http://forum.tfbw.com/viewtopic.php?p=247#247 .

If you've never run across forum bots before here is just one of many http://fp.icontool.com/ . For now spam should be from a by-hand spammer (and then only if their email domain isn't banned).

earlz · Post by **earlz** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 1:49 pm

How about you have some simple things you have to do. like on my guestbook I made, because I didn't want to deal with image verification I just made a prompt that says "type what 2+2 is here" and if it's not 4, then assume it's a bot and ignore it

~ · Post by ~ » Sat Apr 21, 2007 1:57 pm

That Javascript thing was what I said like 1 month ago: to dynamically build the interfaces with Javascript, and if possible add other validation things.

In this topic:

http://www.osdev.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12866&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=13

Brynet-Inc · Post by **Brynet-Inc** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 2:04 pm

chase wrote:So did a little research about additional methods to find spam and I ran across this http://www.tfbw.com/archives/20 . Basically this guy says that most forum bots don't support javascript. I took that idea and made my own implemention. Javascript is now required to register, after registration you don't have to keep it on. For the details of what I did take a look at http://forum.tfbw.com/viewtopic.php?p=247#247 .

If you've never run across forum bots before here is just one of many http://fp.icontool.com/ . For now spam should be from a by-hand spammer (and then only if their email domain isn't banned).

In regards to your post on that forum.. Did you only have to modify the subSilver theme?

chase · Post by **chase** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 5:37 pm

I went with what I did because it's easy to reapply and should be completely transparent to most users. Maybe one day we'll have to resort to human comprehension tests. If that day comes I'd probably like to implement it with questions like "what is the byte signature starting at the 510th byte of a bootable floppy" or "what is the memory mapped io address of color text for vga cards" and the questions would link to the OSDev wiki articles where the answer can be found. The human spammers could pass the "which is a kitten" or "what is 2 + 2" type tests pretty easy and I wouldn't have any problems encouraging people to read the wiki during the registration process.

All I modified was subSilver because I have it as the default theme so it's what everyone that isn't registered yet is using.

Brynet-Inc · Post by **Brynet-Inc** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 5:45 pm

Hey chase, Any reason subSilver is default? I've been using mtDark2.. It's brilliant.. The white one burns the eyes.. (Annoying when the login session expires.. hehe)

Anyway to vote which theme is default or something

?

pcmattman · Post by **pcmattman** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 5:56 pm

I used mtDark, then whenever I switched to my IDE with a white text background my eyes went crazy

Edit: actually mtDark2 is pretty nifty. I like it.

Alboin · Post by **Alboin** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:21 pm

I find subsilver easier to read, although after trying out mtDark, I'm quite liking it...

pcmattman · Post by **pcmattman** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:30 pm

As soon as you switch to mtDark, it becomes quite addictive

...

I like it a lot.