Topic: Bad Behavior mod - The Web's premier link spam killer (Now with SMF 2 httpBL)

[butchs]

Link to Mod

Bad Behavior Mod

PHP-based solution for blocking link spam and robots

Turning the Spam Flood Into a Trickle for Years

Written by:    butchs

Donations accepted to help support this mod

INSTALLATION:

Please look at all the preview images on the mod page.

Adjust settings before you enable the mod.
(Mod will disable it's self when uninstalled)

Check all the options that are "Recommended" in "Bad Behavior Admin/ SETTINGS".

Whitelist all your regular members.  Read "WHITELIST MEMBERS HELP" for details.

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The core of the mod protects your site even if httpBL is not enabled.  It is recommended to increase protection by adding httpBL.

httpBL procedure:
Register your site at ProjectHoneyPot.
Get the access key at ProjectHoneyPot.
Add an OPTIONAL honey pot script for your site.
Copy the OPTIONAL honey pot script to your site (the same location as the SMF folder).
Activate the OPTIONAL honey pot script and confirm it is active.

Copy over the HoneyPot information in the "Bad Behavior Admin/ SETTINGS/ Project Honey Pot HTTP Blacklist" area:

• http:BL Access Key - Access Keys are 12-alpha characters (no numbers). They are lower-case. You should copy the Access Key exactly as it appears at the Project Honey Pot network.
• Minimum Threat Level - 25
• Maximum Age of Data - 30
• Honeypot Link - The link to the OPTIONAL honey pot Script Location or a QuickLink.
• Honeypot Link word - A word you make up.

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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - OPTIONAL CloudFlare - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

If you use CloudFlare:  Enter "Cf-Connecting-Ip" in "IP call to Reverse Proxy" and check "Enable Reverse Proxy".

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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - OPTIONAL Admin Choice - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Administrators are automatically whitelisted by the mod.  If you are paranoid, you can make the these changes.

Enter your personal admin IP address or CIDR range "Bad Behavior Admin/ SETTINGS/ Whitelist/ IP Address".  For more information read "ADVANCED WHITELIST HELP".

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Check "Enable Bad Behavior".
HELP:
Click the help icons in the mod for additional help.

Standard option information is located at the core bad-behavior site.
FAQs:

• WHITELIST MEMBERS HELP
• ADVANCED WHITELIST HELP
• USING OpenID HELP
• USING PAYPAL HELP
• SUSPICIOUS BBC TAG HELP - Only for SMF 2.0 Gold.
• UPGRADING FROM AN OLDER VERSION HELP.

TESTING:
To insure that Bad Behavior is functioning correctly you can add the sting "Bad Behavior Test" to the User Agent (UA) of a HTTP request from someone who is not in the whitelist and is not the administrator.

• Windows use FireFox with the [nofollow]"Modify Headers"[/nofollow] add-on.
• Macintosh, [nofollow]"enable the Develop menu"[/nofollow] in Safari.

If you look at the page source (just below the title) you will see the speed of this mod at work:  <!-- Bad Behavior 2.x.xx run time: 3.025 ms -->
[/list]

[flapjack]

finally it's approved good job!

[butchs]

Thank you.   It was the easiest mod approval I had to date.  I must be improving.   

[butchs]

I noticed that many people are downloading just the mod.  Please note that this mod is a 2 part mod.  Yea it is unusual but that is what we need to do.  You first need to run the install then the mod.  Otherwise it will not work.  See the first post for more details.
 

[flapjack]

aaargh, yes I forgot to ping you about this. any particular reason why you didn't pack all stuff into one file, just out of curiosity? I have a feeling that most feedback you will be getting will be because somebody didn't read mod's info...

[butchs]

I prefer to keep them apart for the following reasons:

• The BB core author "Michael Hampton" has approved that I can write the mod as long as he is only responsible for the core (not the mod).  So I broke them apart.
• I do not want to update the mod every time the core changes unless I have to.   If I packaged them together you will not be able to update until I had a chance to make a new package and will not be able to do it quick enough for most people here.
• You can quickly update the BB portion simply by uninstalling the mod, updating the key files in FTP and reinstalling the mod.

For more details please read the installation and update portions of the readme and the SMF readme.

[flapjack]

I'm just saying...

did you think about automatic download of the core files from within your mod? this way you don't have to distribute two files, people won't scream at you, and it's an easy way to keep the core files up to date

[butchs]

I know but, Dude, I spent 7 months on this mod.  My insanity goes so far.   I have no idea how to do that, if it was possible I probably could find a way but, right now I plan to take a break form coding. 

I tried to install the core then update it as one package.  It worked fine for the install but failed when I tried to uninstall it.  It was a nasty crash that caused reinstallation of SMF on the test server.  Two files were better.  People should be able to install two mods.  


edit:  The more I think about it a download will most likley have the same fate as a single mod that edits files (same as above).   

[butchs]

Ok today we have over 6:1 download ratio of the mod vs install package.  Since it is an international site, I can only assume that many people downloading do not read the text or do not read English that well.  So I renamed the zip files to:

• bad_behavior_install_pt1of2.zip
• Bad_Behavior_mod_pt2of2.zip.

This should help improve things.

No changes made to the actual code.

[clevelife]

Thank you for this Mod, I will be trying it out today.  I will make sure to install only the 1st part 

[butchs]

Please let me know what you think?

By the way, though not recommended by all, I prefer to use strict mode.  It gets rid of those spammers hiding behind proxies.
 

[clevelife]

Please let me know what you think?

By the way, though not recommended by all, I prefer to use strict mode.  It gets rid of those spammers hiding behind proxies.
 

I will do that.  I don't know how much it will work right away.  I've only got one person signed up this week. 

[butchs]

I doubt you will see much until you get more members.  My board has a medium-low visitor rate.  I was getting over 150 visitors a day when I started using the mod.  the first week Bad Behavior rejected 180 bad bots, the next week it was 80, then it slowed down to around 40 per week.

One heavily used web pages I have seen numbers from 1,000 - 3,000 rejected bad bots per week.
 

[Wizzlefits]

Been testing this puppy for a few days on a 2.0 RC3 test site.  Now, after checking all the blocked IPs there is just one thing to say.. It works GREAT!

The install, although very simple, was at first a bit confusing. But reading ALL of the instructions helped.

One question,
How does this work for an admin or user with a dynamic IP?  Just curious.

[butchs]

Logged in admin users are skipped and are not checked.

I recommend that you put your IP in the whitelist just to be safe.  You can enter the IP range too.  I do not think that dynamic IP's will have a issue but if they do then they will need to enter the IP range of the host.

It is more important to review the whitelist and make sure that IP and URL of the forum is covered assuming that you have a non standard directory system.  ie.  "forum/index.php" instead of the standard "smf/index.php".
 

[HiramAbif]

I have a question.  I have guest posting enabled and there is one dude who is maliciously spamming my board using what I believe to be imacros.  Would this stop someone who floods the board with the same topic over and over again?  Thank you.

[kizer]

How does the email work on the ERROR 403 message? Meaning I really dont' want to give out my email address so I can go from a web spammer to a victim of email spam

[butchs]

I have a question.  I have guest posting enabled and there is one dude who is maliciously spamming my board using what I believe to be imacros.  Would this stop someone who floods the board with the same topic over and over again?  Thank you.

The mod does not check the number of posts it checks to see if the bot is bad.  If the dude is a real spammer chances are he will not be able to even get on your board.  But if he is a normal person playing games then you will need to use other measures.

[butchs]

How does the email work on the ERROR 403 message? Meaning I really dont' want to give out my email address so I can go from a web spammer to a victim of email spam

The mod does not give out your email as a normal email.  If your email is admin@yoursite.com it shows admin at yoursite.com.  A human/ spammer will have to correct and type it in order to be able to send you a message.  So the chances are low that you will get spammed.

This is included so that regular users can contact you for access.  For example, someone you know logs in and gets ERROR 403.  They can then use this error to send you a message and get placed on the whitelsit by you.  If you did not give them a method to contact you, they will never be able to log in.

The email listed is from the "Webmaster Email Address" listed in "admin -> server settings -> general -> Webmaster Email Address".  It is not recommended but, if you do not want your email address showing up leave the above setting blank.

[butchs]

Further clarification on my last post (It was late and I was tired).

Attached is a copy of what the spammer will see when they are caught.

If the spammer clicks on [nofollow] "admin at eastcoastrollingthunder.com" [/nofollow] then they will record  [nofollow] "admin at eastcoastrollingthunder.com" [/nofollow].  Which will not send an email to your site.

But if one of your members click on it their email program will pop up and they will have to fix the address before it the message is sent.

Whatever you do, do not use your personal email address as the "Webmaster Email Address".  Besides being a modified return address in ERROR 403 the "Webmaster Email Address" is used to report forum errors and as a return email address for all the Newsletters that you send.  If a spammer is a member they can harvest your email address.  Instead use an email address specifically for your forum that has some sort of spam filter installed or run it through a email forwarding service.  Most people use one of the free address provided by the hosting company for the forum admin email address.  In many cases, the hosting company offers a configurable spam filtering system that you can use before you forward the message to your real email address.   Then use the forwarding system provided by their hosting company to forward the message to a real email address.  I do the same thing but I forward my admin to a email forwarding service [nofollow]http://pobox.com/[/nofollow] that has a spam filter that in turn forwards the cleansed message to my real email address.