shoe spammer

HEXadecimal · Post by **HEXadecimal** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:12 am

we got a problem! i suggest you guys take immediate action.
the frequency is kinda increasing

http://forums.armagetronad.net/search.p ... or=hulin58

philippeqc · Post by **philippeqc** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:48 am

HEX:
Notice that all the post where made 1 minute apart. The bot must have registered, scanned the different forums, and posted in successsion to all of them. Since the account was created on the same day, I'd guess that even banning it, the bot will still be able to create a new account and repeat its post. At least that is how I'd write such a bot.

To any who know about phpbb:
-Is there any captcha module we could use?
-I recall some forums that didnt give you an account before you gave a short description of yourself. New users might have to wait a day or 2 before being able to rush to the forums with half-baked question, and we might be able to use that time to tell them that a) we have a wiki and b) there is an etiquette about posting online. Would there be a plug-in module for that?

-ph

Post by **Tank Program** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:03 am

I thought the captcha we had we good enough, too. Maybe if some more bots get past it I'll dhange it again. In the meantime I'll just handle spam myself.

[dMf]sPuNkY · Post by **[dMf]sPuNkY** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 10:05 pm

try out a math captcha..

A Math CAPTCHA uses numbers instead of letters and asks the human to solve a simple mathematical calculation (54 +16 =) and record the answer.

Would this technique have been used at the beginning,
some people (actual users) would have never been able to access this

Post by **Tank Program** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 10:13 pm

That's an interesting idea, the match captcha. I like that one.

Jonathan · Post by **Jonathan** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 11:40 pm

The problem is that it can hardly be called a CAPTCHA. It only works because it's not very prominent right now. It'd be better to think up something unique that others aren't likely to use. Even if it's not theoretically perfect, solving it won't be worthwhile until AI gets good enough to know what it's dealing with. Simple math expressions won't do because it's the first alternative people seem to consider, and because they're just too easy to break.

Post by **Lucifer** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 11:55 pm

Why not use the book captcha? That way we can help digitize books too.

Post by **dlh** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 3:20 am

Most likely a human registered the account manually. He then ran a program which used this login information to login pragmatically and spam the forums (using something such as WWW::Mechanize). People really get paid to do this kind of stuff, and no captcha will be able to stop it (unless you create one which a human would not be able to complete).

Post by **Lucifer** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 5:45 am

If it's the digitize books captcha, I wouldn't mind filling it in with every post. I'll try to dig up a link, it's a CMU project, iirc.

Post by **Lucifer** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 5:52 am

Found it:

http://recaptcha.net/

Post by **Tank Program** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 8:07 am

So how about integrals for our captcha then? No solvable by simple math libraries and it guarantees a minimum level of knowledge. This is hypothetical at the moment. I have no intention of actually implementing a captcha here at the moment.

Post by **epsy** » Sun Sep 02, 2007 8:07 am

nemostultae wrote:unless you create one which a human would not be able to complete

but...it's already non-readable for normal humans...

kyle · Post by **kyle** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:16 pm

[dMf]sPuNkY wrote:try out a math captcha..
A Math CAPTCHA uses numbers instead of letters and asks the human to solve a simple mathematical calculation (54 +16 =) and record the answer.

good idea i made one for CT's forum. i just made it use tables instead of making an image. If you guys want it i'll give you the code to generate it. you will just have to add it to the forum. i do not have it in CT's forum yet