Suggestions for a permanent solution to the Arabic spam threads

[officegunner]

Use CAPTCHA3 on registration.
Ask an abstract question on registration, "How many t-spins are there", "What are the blocks called in Tetris?". Fill in all variations of answers with caps or spaces or underscores.

This will stop 100% of automated bots. It will also stop a large majority of non-English speaking human spammers (they can't Google, or easily translate).

If they start getting through, change the question. Or have the question rotate between 4-10.

http://harddrop.com/forums/index.php?showt...=6585&st=4#

There's not really a permanent solution. But if you made the signup process a little more dynamic, most bots won't be able to figure it out.

1. Qualitative questions. Show a picture of a cat and ask "What animal is this?" and accept any answer that is cat-like (cat, kitten, lion, tiger). Other questions can be "What direction is this arrow pointing?" or "What do you drink water out of?". Rotate these questions.

2. Have a multi-page sign up process. The register page says steps 1-4, but if the account is made after step 1, then it is too easy to make an account. If the registration is separated out, it makes writing a bot less worthwhile. For example, if the first page is account details and the second page is captcha/verification, then someone would need to be devoted to writing a bot specifically for that process.

3. Make a javascript timer that delays the registration request (hit the server with a session token once, and then the registration payload). Most bots will not obey timers. Timer doesn't have to be too long, 1-2 seconds. If a registration comes in too fast, then you kick it out.

4. Do not use a static registration url (ie. /public/register). Also, do not reveal the url to the user. A form/post is too easy to code to. Have AJAX pull down a dynamic registration url when a user clicks "Join Hard Drop". Things like this break most of the bots out there and confuses most script kiddies (it helps if you obfuscate the javascript as well).

Keep in mind that if someone is truly dedicated, he/she will write a bot for your registration process.

http://harddrop.com/forums/index.php?showt...=6585&st=4#

[exchliore]

http://harddrop.com/forums/index.php?showt...=6585&st=4#

I'm not sure why you are linking to your post here. Are you disagreeing with what we are saying or do you want feedback on your idea?

[officegunner]

http://harddrop.com/forums/index.php?showt...=6585&st=4#

I'm not sure why you are linking to your post here. Are you disagreeing with what we are saying or do you want feedback on your idea?

I'm surprised no one has any feedback on code that would stop the actual spam that comes out, since its just about the only spam we get these days, and instead discuss workarounds like changing the registration progress, which can be over come by a bot with modification.

The code I wrote basically forbids them from posting that kind of content, and if they want to bypass it they would have to change the whole post pretty much.

Feedback would be appreciated

[officegunner]

bump.

[kastle09]

I have an idea but it kinda sucks for new members.

I am a member of the Rooster Teeth Community as well and on there site they have Karma level. Now intially if you are below a karma level of say 5 you cant create new topics. You can comment on current topics but cant post new ones until you are a certain level.

You can thing of ways to earn karma, submitting vidoes, posting on threads, being in the shoutbox, idk.

[officegunner]

I have an idea but it kinda sucks for new members.

I am a member of the Rooster Teeth Community as well and on there site they have Karma level. Now intially if you are below a karma level of say 5 you cant create new topics. You can comment on current topics but cant post new ones until you are a certain level.

You can thing of ways to earn karma, submitting vidoes, posting on threads, being in the shoutbox, idk.

if its anything that has to be implemented, then its not doable, since HD hasn't been updated since forever.
if we have to implement a system, my code just prevents the guy from posting the thread, and nothing more. We need to do something to this spam... every time I see the spam, the immediate thought is: "WE ALREADY HAVE SOLUTION(S) FOR THIS"

I know HD 2.0 isn't finished yet, but can't we just implement a spam filter that solves this problem?

[morningpee]

Will someone please implement officegunner's solution as an IP Board hook in PHP that removes matched content?  I don't have the permissions or I would.

[Superjustinbros]

I noticed that all these spams are coming from one account: lizaana. Wouldn't banning her solve some of our issues with the spam threads?

[Aaron]

I noticed that all these spams are coming from one account: lizaana. Wouldn't banning her solve some of our issues with the spam threads?

30 of 765 Arabic spam threads were created by lizaana.