BotScout "BotBuster" for SMF 1.x and 2.0 Beta 4

[improv]

Hey again, it appears your mod is not the source of evil which I noticed shortly when my website begun to act strange again.
Sorry for reporting this as a bug.

Regards,
-improv

[MrMike]

I tried an email address I found in botscout.com and was able to register in my forum with now problem.

I think you're doing something wrong, but it's hard to determine what from here.

This was the only way to see if it was working, but it doesn't seem to do anything.

If you want to PM me your forum URL, I'll try and register with a known-bad address and see what happens. We have over 1,000 users that have installed plugins for phpBB, SMF, etc, and as far as I can tell, it's working for them.

[Guiness]

This mod is excellent but now the bots that couldnt register are posting in the guest area.
I tried looking at post.template to see the code where it checks guests in the hope of trying to get it to run botscout.php on their IP, but it doesnt have the guest's IP there. There must be a way of stopping bots from posting, I just cant see it now

I tried a "ban button in post" mod to manually ban their IP's after they have posted but that mod doesnt work on guests, Botscout would be the best method to stop bots from posting.

[MrMike]

There must be a way of stopping bots from posting, I just cant see it now

I use some code that prevents a user from posting any outside link until they have certain number of posts to their credit. If they're under that limit and they try to post a link then it just recycles them back to the preview screen.

[TurtleKicker]

Does this mod support SMF2 RC2?

[Klankster]

This looks like a great mod, but for some reason I am not getting any results.  I got an API key from BotScout and plugged it into my BotScout.php file as indicated and hooked up the other code as noted in the docs and did a couple of test registrations with good emails etc., then I went to the BotScout website and logged into my account.  The "API Key Stats" shows 0 tests and 0 bots -- Shouldn't it show a couple of tests from my registrations?  I suspect that code isn't being executed.

I'm using SMF 1.1.11

My code in Register.php looks like this starting on line 156:

Code Select Expand

    foreach ($_POST as $key => $value)
    {
        if (!is_array($_POST[$key]))
            $_POST[$key] = htmltrim__recursive(str_replace(array("\n", "\r"), '', $_POST[$key]));
    }

    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    // BotScout.com "BotBuster" check
    include('BotScout.php');
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   


Does this look correct?  I double-checked the path to BotScout.php, and it is getting to that script.  Beats me why I'm not seeing any hits on the API key over at the BotScout site.

Any ideas would be appreciated!

[Apostman]

Just FYI,

on my first install 1.30 from admin... Of course I had everything all mucked up

So I downloaded the .zip only to find later I was editing the 1.20 version. I visited the BotScout website and forum. I downloaded BotScout.php from there and it was 1.40. I edited it adding The API key and setting Email Notification to 1 and sent it up. I got a email notice fairly quickly. So I logged into my BotScout account and viewed the stats. I let it run 24hrs and verified each email notice to the API stats.

Now,  I wonder if it is blocking all registrations, but I dont think it can do that?

Now the admin Browse mods shows a red dot by BotBuster And apparently I am suffering seperation anxiety as I no longer have swarms of registrations besieging my forum and nothing to live for.    

[Angie on Dialysis]

Having issues .. is Botscout down now?

[MrMike]

Yes, BotScout is down today due to an apparent hard drive failure. It should be back later today or tomorrow.

If for some reason it takes longer than that we'll run it from a temp server until the original server is back up.

Having issues .. is Botscout down now?

[Angie on Dialysis]

Yes, BotScout is down today due to an apparent hard drive failure. It should be back later today or tomorrow.

If for some reason it takes longer than that we'll run it from a temp server until the original server is back up.

Having issues .. is Botscout down now?

Thanks!

[glennk]

is this compatable to 2rc4 because on the  mod download page it says not

[MrMike]

is this compatable to 2rc4 because on the  mod download page it says not

Do you suspect the download page is lying to you?

I've no idea if it will work with 2.x versions. The code was originally written for the 1.x branch, beyond that I can't say whether or not it will work with 2.x.

It would be fairly trivial (I think) for someone who knows what they're doing to repackage it for the 2.x branch. The underlying code hasn't changed at all and the API is the same. I don't have any familiarity with 2.x so I  don't know if the form field names are the same or not.

If someone would like to repackage it for the 2.x branch I'd be grateful. I'm sorry to say that doing that is not something I know how to do.

Failing that, the generic code (http://botscout.com/code.htm) should be easy to use with the 2.x branch.

[damouse]

this is an excellent mod.

my forum was getting 3-5 bot registrations a week despite recaptcha and a logic question, I installed this about 4 months ago and have had practically nothing get through since.

in the last 2 weeks I've been getting new bots getting in again, when I test the  email addys on botscout they're not in the database.

has the project changed the way it updates the database/ should I start looking for another, similar system?

can I help by adding my newfound bots to botscout.com? it asks for an API key, what do I give it?

[MrMike]

in the last 2 weeks I've been getting new bots getting in again, when I test the  email addys on botscout they're not in the database.

has the project changed the way it updates the database/ should I start looking for another, similar system?

No, the system hasn't changed the way it updates the database. In fact, we've expanded our bot trapping network in order to catch more than we were previously able to catch.

Here's the thing: new bots are created all the time. It's impossible to catch them all, and it's impossible to catch them before they start to go about their business. If more bots are created then (statistically speaking) more will be roaming around in the wild before they're detected and caught, and more will get through. No system can stop bots before they've been caught at least once. Until they're caught, they won't be in any database.

There has been been a steep increase in the level of bot activity over the last few months, and we expect it to keep increasing. Bots are cheap and easy to run, just like spam. It's likely that you're going to see a lot more of them as time goes by. I'd use a layered approach, like using BotScout in addition to one of the better CAPTCHA systems for SMF (I particularly like the Avatar Verification mod coupled with BotScout- it's pretty effective).

But be aware- no anti-bot, CAPTCHA, or anti-spam system will stop human spammers. There's a good chance that some of the ones getting through are humans and not bots.

can I help by adding my newfound bots to botscout.com? it asks for an API key, what do I give it?

It's asking for an API Key, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's what you need to give it. You can get a free API from the BotScout site here:

http://botscout.com/getkey.htm

[serge M]

I have installed the mod a couple of day of days ago and it works just great. Thank you a lot.

My problem is, that after 20 tries of registrations nobody can register any more, what causes trouble to "good" new users.
I got the API code but cannot find how to integrate it. Can somebody tell me?

[riou]

I have installed the mod a couple of day of days ago and it works just great. Thank you a lot.

My problem is, that after 20 tries of registrations nobody can register any more, what causes trouble to "good" new users.
I got the API code but cannot find how to integrate it. Can somebody tell me?

In your forum source folder you will find Botscout.php

inside the file you will see the lines 10-12:

Code Select Expand

// Your optional API key (if you don't have one
// you can get one here: http://botscout.com/)
$APIKEY = 'INSERT YOUR API CODE HERE';

You need to insert your api code where it says insert your api code here, save the file then re-upload to the sources folder

[serge M]

Hi riou,

and thank you a lot for your help. I did what you told me, the effect was that it stopped working. The forum refused any
new registrations saying "Registration de-activated" I switched through all modes, still doesnt work. My Botscout.php
looks like this now (instead of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX i did put the 15-digit API code I received by mail:

Code Select Expand

<?php

if (!defined('SMF'))
die('Hacking attempt...');

function checkBotScout($username, $email)
{
global $sourcedir, $txt, $webmaster_email;

// Your optional API key (if you don't have one 
// you can get one here: http://botscout.com/)
$APIKEY = 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX';

// Send e-mail notices?
$send_alerts = false;

$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$email = urlencode($email);

$query = 'http://botscout.com/test/?multi&mail=' . $email . '&ip=' . $ip . (!empty($APIKEY) ? '&key=' . $APIKEY : '');

if (function_exists('curl_init'))
{
$ch = curl_init($query);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$returned_data = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
}
else
{
require_once($sourcedir . '/Subs-Package.php');

$returned_data = fetch_web_data($query);
}

if(substr($returned_data, 0,1) == '!'){
// if the first character is an exclamation mark, an error has occurred  
$err_msg = fatal_lang_error($returned_data, true);
exit;
}

if (empty($returned_data))
return false;
else
$returned_data = explode('|', $returned_data);

// sample 'MULTI' return string 
// Y|MULTI|IP|4|MAIL|26|NAME|30

// $botdata[0] - 'Y' if found in database, 'N' if not found, '!' if an error occurred 
// $botdata[1] - type of test (will be 'MAIL', 'IP', 'NAME', or 'MULTI') 
// $botdata[2] - descriptor field for item (IP)
// $botdata[3] - how many times the IP was found in the database 
// $botdata[4] - descriptor field for item (MAIL)
// $botdata[5] - how many times the EMAIL was found in the database 
// $botdata[6] - descriptor field for item (NAME)
// $botdata[7] - how many times the NAME was found in the database 

if ($returned_data[0] == 'Y' && $send_alerts)
{
require_once($sourcedir . '/Subs-Post.php');

sendmail($webmaster_email, $txt['botscout_mail_subject'], sprintf($txt['botscout_mail_body'], $username, $email, $ip));
fatal_lang_error('registration_disabled', false);
}
elseif ($returned_data[0] == 'Y')
fatal_lang_error('registration_disabled', false);
else
return;
}

?>

all worked fine before I did include the API code. Any suggestions? Thanks a lot in advance,

Serge

[MrMike]

You put in the API key and it stopped allowing any registrations? What happens if you take it back out?

Hi riou,

and thank you a lot for your help. I did what you told me, the effect was that it stopped working. The forum refused any
new registrations saying "Registration de-activated" I switched through all modes, still doesnt work. My Botscout.php
looks like this now (instead of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX i did put the 15-digit API code I received by mail:

[SD-X]

Is this mod compatible with StopSpammer and httpBL?

[MrMike]

Yes, as far as I know there should be no conflict with either of them (or any other mod).

Is this mod compatible with StopSpammer and httpBL?