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Thread: phpBB Spammer Problem

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  1. #1

    phpBB Spammer Problem

    My mods and I are having a major headache with our phpBB forums. I'm having to filter through literally an estimated couple hundred spam accounts a week if not more, as my site's been getting hammered by them for many months now. What sucks with my phpBB setup is that you HAVE to edit each account one by one - there's no way to delete multiple accounts at a time.

    I have every available spam filtering option enabled too, including image confirmation. The spambots evidently have eyes now, so that's not doing much to keep them out. So I've been doing administrative approval, but we're getting rather tired of having dozens upon dozens of emails a day that are nothing but spam accounts.

    Do any of you guys know any tricks? Is there any way I can tweak phpBB to do a better job of keeping these bots out?
    Last edited by AngelicKnight; December 6th, 2007 at 07:35 PM.

  2. #2
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Congratulations AK,

    Your newest member is Hhoeupvh, and he is a spammer. He will attempt to spam pharmaceutical products

    I will give your request some thought and send you a PM. I don't want the little scroats finding out our countermeasures

    I shall probably have to create an account to get a feel for the process. I shall call it nihil123.

    cheers

  3. #3
    Jaded Network Admin nebulus200's Avatar
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    Don't allow posting to any forums without logging on and require image verification for each logon...went a long way towards removing the problem on our clan forums...both are natively supported in phpBB.

    /neb
    There is only one constant, one universal, it is the only real truth: causality. Action. Reaction. Cause and effect...There is no escape from it, we are forever slaves to it. Our only hope, our only peace is to understand it, to understand the 'why'. 'Why' is what separates us from them, you from me. 'Why' is the only real social power, without it you are powerless.

    (Merovingian - Matrix Reloaded)

  4. #4
    Don't allow posting to any forums without logging on and require image verification for each logon...
    Yep, got those set already.

    Saw you pop in Nihil. Want admin privileges to look around? I've already got Foxy as an admin. You can never have too many Brits.

  5. #5
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Sure AK,

    That would be a good idea as I can check out the internal processes. OK I know the general principles, but I don't have any hands on experience of phpBB.

    Cheers

  6. #6
    Senior Member
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    What version of phpbb is it? If it isnt 2.0.22 you should upgrade..

  7. #7
    It is 2.0.22.

    I'll set you up with admin Nihil -- Just fyi, all admins get emails for new accounts, which means tons of emails due to the spambots, so might want to tweak junk filter accordingly to keep those out of your inbox.

    Check out the introduction forum while you're poking around in there.

  8. #8
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    OK AK, that's fine. I want to look at then to analyse patterns. This spambotting is something I have watched grow since we updated the site, and I have been studying it for some time now and JPNyc and I discuss trends and developments quite regularly.

    I look forward to looking around and hope that I can help. Hopefully we can help each other as I will get more samples to examine.

    Cheers,

    Johnno

  9. #9
    AO Veteran NeuTron's Avatar
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    I was able to solve this same problem by changing the color of the text in the CAPTCHA verification. Unfortunately, I can't find the link to the post I used to fix it. I did however, find a link what looks like a similar solution. You might want to give it a try:
    http://www.softwaresecretweapons.com...es_and_shadows

  10. #10
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    install "Textual Confirmation" by bbantispam. No spam bot will ever register again.

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