• kagaku
  • Junior Member
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  • Registered: 2009-12-03
  • Posts: 6

Topic: How to limit IP address ranges? (allow US-only registration?)

I run a forum targeting folks strictly in the Midwest (it's a LAN party community) and lately we've been hit hard with spammers joining up and posting junk. I've mitigated the problem by installing a registration approval plugin that allows moderators to manually approve each new registration - however this is unsustainable long term. Already we've rejected two new legitimate members accidentally. The spam bots sign up with some convincing usernames and fill in legit looking profile information/signatures etc.. The only sure-fire way to identify these bots is by looking up the IP address - 99% of them are non-US based (usually European or Asian).

Is there any way to ban all non-US IP addresses? I believe this would nearly eliminate our problems, as we do not expect anyone from outside the US to join our forum.

  • From: Ukraine
  • Registered: 2008-10-31
  • Posts: 762

Re: How to limit IP address ranges? (allow US-only registration?)

Try first Fancy_stop_spam extension.

  • kagaku
  • Junior Member
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  • Registered: 2009-12-03
  • Posts: 6

Re: How to limit IP address ranges? (allow US-only registration?)

Unfortunately I'm still running 1.3.4 and cannot update any time soon (don't have the time) - was hoping to find a quick fix. I do see an older unsupported version of your plugin for 1.3.x - think that would help?

  • KeyDog
  • KeyDog
  • Global Moderator
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  • Registered: 2008-12-12
  • Posts: 1,693

Re: How to limit IP address ranges? (allow US-only registration?)

Other solutions are effective in stopping registrations/posts;

Have you tried
stop bots question
akismet extension
URL checker

  • kagaku
  • Junior Member
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  • Registered: 2009-12-03
  • Posts: 6

Re: How to limit IP address ranges? (allow US-only registration?)

The stop bots question extension seems to have done the trick. I've left registration approval on (and will for a few more days), but so far no more spam registrations in the queue! I've tried to make the questions either very tech specific or midwestern-US regional specific. Hopefully that will require the spammers to at least google the answer (or give up!).

Thanks!

6 Reply by Grez

  • Grez
  • PunBB senior member
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  • From: Czech Republic
  • Registered: 2008-12-03
  • Posts: 248

Re: How to limit IP address ranges? (allow US-only registration?)

@kagaku: Well if that won't help, you may always try captcha tongue

They won't google this big_smile
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_pqc1Ho2DfSs/S84aZ5ytyfI/AAAAAAAAExM/QsZlSMyXumU/captcha-math%5B7%5D.png

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