Spammers and Questions (was: Bad Behavior mod)

[landyvlad]

I change the questions regularly but if anything it's getting worse...

[Kindred]

How many questions do you have in the pile? How any do you ask at once?

WAIT....  do you have tapatalk installed?

[landyvlad]

IIRC 15 questions and need to answer 3.

HAD tapatalk but got rid of it. (Hopefully all of it). ?

[Bob Perry of Web Presence Consulting]

IIRC 15 questions and need to answer 3.

HAD tapatalk but got rid of it. (Hopefully all of it). ?

Good choice, getting rid of it, but you may want to double check that all traces of that bad boy are removed, I've had trouble removing that one a long time ago...

Hmm... it sounds like you may want to think about not "changing" questions, but adding new ones, the more there are the better, especially as you are requiring them to answer 3 questions, it only takes a robot a few passes to memorize a pool of 15 questions...

[Bob Perry of Web Presence Consulting]

no. this mod does not have any affect on linkspam, afaik.

If they are getting through your questions - then you need to revise/add questions because the ones you have are either too easy or have been cataloged

In addition to this, there WILL be those that get through and attempt to post immediately never to return... so it's imperative to set user security permissions so all new user posts must be approved by staff before becoming visible to public...

[Kindred]

I have 20-30 questions, but only ask 2.

Also, yes, tapatalk bypasses most of the login security...

[landyvlad]

Thanks.

Hardly any ever post - they get caught in the 'awaiting approval' queue of the  'Stop Spammer' mod.  However the regularly required manual clean out of that list is painful and I'd much rather that they never got that far at all.

The problem with setting a bigger question pool, is coming up with questions that won't confuse / put impediments in the way of genuine users, especially where their first language isn't English.  I think I may have to do more "What capital letter appears here: abcDef" type of questions

Re Tapatalk. How would I go about ensuring ALL traces of that mod have actually been removed?

[Sir Osis of Liver]

If tapatalk were on the mod site here (it's not), you could parse it and find/remove any remaining code edits.  Don't know if that info is available on their website.  IIRC, it replaces some source files with its own version, which can cause problems with subsequent SMF upgrades and mod installs.  If you suspect it's causing problems, best way to go is clean install.

[GigaWatt]

Try this .

https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=531660.msg3776163#msg3776163

If you suspect it's causing problems, best way to go is clean install.

I would recommend the same.

[efk]

Try this .

https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=531660.msg3776163#msg3776163

If you suspect it's causing problems, best way to go is clean install.

I would recommend the same.

In last few days I've noticed megaspam from bots, had to ban about 30 accounts in last 24 hours on 1 smf forum, few on 2nd smf forum, and have outdated vbulletin with about 250 spamming posts. Using this method with security questions on all 3 forum, and had rarely problems, so it looks like bots are collecting information about forums, find answers on questions and do scheduled attack.
Talking about post made by a10.

[Kindred]

bots do collect questions....   about once a year or so, it seems they catalog the questions and someone spends some real-person time to input answers and update their spambot database.  So, that is one reason that 30+ questions (asking 1 or 2) is a good choice... and a reason to change your questions once a year or so.

[PercyVere]

Thanks for the info on this thread.  I've been bombarded over the last couple of days and have already deleted over 210 membership requests.  I'll increase the number of questions to ask/answer.

[Ronald_1938]

For the last week I have also been nailed with dozens of spammers, thought maybe Stop Spam was going bad..

All I did was remove the Visual verification image to display and add reCAPTCHA Verification System the one that asks are you a bot. This seems to have stopped the onslaught of Spam registrations..

[GigaWatt]

I can also confirm that there has been a rise in bot activity lately and yes, mostly from IP's from Russia (though they could be hiding behind a proxy). They seem to come in "waves". A few days of peace, then over a 100 guests (my forum is not that big, so this number should be higher on bigger forums), then another few days with 5 to 10 guests (pretty common on my forum) and then again over 100 guests. Not all of them are trying to register. I'd say about half of them are trying to register... either that, or I still haven't caught the other half .