Anti-Spam Feature: What Does Verification on all Guest Searches Mean?

Started by Jdanniel, January 26, 2009, 04:58:09 PM

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Jdanniel

Hello.

Over the weekend, I successfully installed 2.0 Beta 4, and am quite pleased with it so far--especially the anti-spam features.

I do have a question.  In the Configuration/Security and Moderation/Anti-Spam section, there is this following option:

Require verification on all guest searches

I'm not exactly sure what that means.  Can somebody please explain it to me, and tell me how it might be advantageous to enable it?

Thank you very much.  J. Danniel

shadow82x

The settings forces visual verification (CAPTCHA) to be entered when a guest attempt to search the forums.
Colin B
Former Spammer, Customize, & Support Team Member

Jdanniel

Thanks for the response. 

A follow-up:  Am I correct in assuming the reason this is not a good thing is because a guest can search through forums for e-mail addresses, and harvest them for spamming?

Or is there another reason?

Jd

shadow82x

Not too sure exactly on this. But I think doing searches requires a lot of server resources (hence the long load times) so we want to limit that. If there is a bot they can possibly overload the server by completing tons of searches without a wait.

Email addresses can't be viewed by default in SMF2.0 anyway. ;) (Unless your a admin)
Colin B
Former Spammer, Customize, & Support Team Member

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