1 Topic by JAcky

  • JAcky
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  • Registered: 2008-03-03
  • Posts: 9

Topic: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

I just wanted to see if there is any interest in a spam bot protection mod for 1.3 or if 1.3 already comes with one.

I wrote this mod http://www.network-technologies.org/Pro … mod_punbb/ a while back and have received good feedback but I doubt the instructions work for 1.3

I am currently writing a new bot protection script for all my web pages and I could port it to 1.3 if it is needed.

My protection will:
- Ask questions, I really hate images based captchas because most are just too hard to read.
- Write to .htaccess file and block user by IP using mod rewrite if too many invalid answers where given (brute force protection)
- Offers instant block when opening the wrong page. It is possible to place a hidden link on a page and disallow access via robots.txt. This will catch the badly behaving robots.
- Offers the user the chance to unblock his/her IP via a unlock form

Not done yet but will be added soon:
- Whitelist IPs, the database will contain the IP block for Google.com, Yahoo, ... and prevent accidental blocks of "good bots"

So please post here if you are interested in the above and I will get started on writing the implementation guide.

  • Registered: 2007-03-25
  • Posts: 960

Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

mmm donno about the stuff you wrote, but in my 1.3 forums i didnt had any spam registrations etc when i didnt installed the captcha, but i installed it any way later.

MyFootballCafe.com  is Now Online!

3 Reply by JAcky (edited by JAcky 2009-06-05 19:56)

  • JAcky
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Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

SuperMAG wrote:

i didnt had any spam registrations etc when i didnt installed the captcha, but i installed it any way later.

I have not used 1.3 but back when I ran a website with Punbb 1.2 I had a few bots spam my board until I protected it.
My guess is that your forum has either not been found or the spam bots have not been updated to PunBB 1.3 yet.
The CAPTCHA you installed, is it built into version 1.3 or is it a add on?

I don't have a site running PunBB ATM so I don't know what is included in 1.3 as far as CAPTCHA goes but I just decided to open a new form website so I'll check out 1.3

Thanks for the reply

  • sirena
  • sirena
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  • Registered: 2006-04-06
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Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

Hi Jacky:

Yes, pls do port your mod across to 1.3.

1.3 has an official CAPTCHA extension
http://punbb.informer.com/extensions/

but a mod like yours would be a great complement to it as it has a number of advantages over a graphical CAPTCHA.

One can never have enough firepower at the ready to deal with spambots. They are relentless, as you know, and attacks on 1.3 are far from unknown.

5 Reply by JAcky

  • JAcky
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Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

sirena wrote:

Hi Jacky:
1.3 has an official CAPTCHA extension
but a mod like yours would be a great complement to it as it has a number of advantages over a graphical CAPTCHA.
One can never have enough firepower at the ready to deal with spambots. They are relentless, as you know, and attacks on 1.3 are far from unknown.

I installed 1.3 yesterday and found the image based CAPTCHA. I tested it with my OCR program and the software had no problems reading the numbers .....

So I will implement my mod for PunBB 1.3

BTW, this forum is monitored by a lot of spam bots. My site has been hit by 50 extra bots attempting to spam my comment page since I posted the link to my old PunBB 1.2 mod.
I should have posted a link earlier because the more bots attempt to break my CAPTCHA the faster I can test for weak questions  wink

Spam bots, please go here and test your code => http://www.network-technologies.org/Pro … mod_punbb/

  • From: Russia
  • Registered: 2008-07-22
  • Posts: 713

Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

You are right. The CAPTCHA text in pun_antispam isn't well-protected.

You can use pun_antispam as an example to make your own extension. Seems like you should use the same hooks, you have only to change them.

PunBB team intentions, personal tasks.

Parpalak's Website

  • Registered: 2005-09-25
  • Posts: 6

Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

Parpalak wrote:

You are right. The CAPTCHA text in pun_antispam isn't well-protected.

You can use pun_antispam as an example to make your own extension. Seems like you should use the same hooks, you have only to change them.

Why would an official extension such as an antispam extension, which is a pretty important extension imho, be so weak?  I'm not trying to bash anyone, but it just seems like this should be much more developed.

  • From: Russia
  • Registered: 2008-07-22
  • Posts: 713

Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

We wanted to implement the reCAPTCHA support but switched to other tasks. Maybe someone knows a good GPL script that generates CAPTCHA images. We could use it in pun_antispam.

PunBB team intentions, personal tasks.

Parpalak's Website

9 Reply by MattF

  • MattF
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  • From: South Yorkshire, England
  • Registered: 2007-03-15
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Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

Parpalak wrote:

We wanted to implement the reCAPTCHA support but switched to other tasks. Maybe someone knows a good GPL script that generates CAPTCHA images. We could use it in pun_antispam.

http://www.phpcaptcha.org/

MattF's Website

  • From: Russia
  • Registered: 2008-07-22
  • Posts: 713

Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

Ok, thanks smile
We'll see this script.

PunBB team intentions, personal tasks.

Parpalak's Website

11 Reply by JAcky

  • JAcky
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Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

Parpalak wrote:

You can use pun_antispam as an example to make your own extension. Seems like you should use the same hooks, you have only to change them.

I will try to use the PunBB database class since my own database class only support MySQL ATM.
I just uploaded the code handling the addition and removal of IPs to the .htaccess file to my own site. I will monitor the latest changes for bugs and will then modify my code to work with PunBB.

Examples:
Instant Block for bots not honoring robots.txt. First load works, then total block
http://www.network-technologies.org/use … passwords/

Or block after incorrectly answering the validation question of the comment form three times (invalid count is a configuration value). This is how PunBB's "Register" page will work.
http://www.network-technologies.org/Pro … readsheet/

  • From: Russia
  • Registered: 2008-07-22
  • Posts: 713

Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

I've added Securimage CAPTCHA to pun_antispam. Please, test out the svn version of pun_antispam ("Download in other formats: Zip Archive" link at the bottom of the trac page).

PunBB team intentions, personal tasks.

Parpalak's Website

13 Reply by MattF

  • MattF
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Re: Is Anti Spam Bot mod needed for 1.3?

Nice to see you've implemented the image refresh option in the extension too. smile

MattF's Website