reCAPTCHA

[David]

All forums have a problem with spam and ours is no exception. A few months ago we came under a sustained attack from bots who managed to bypass the existing CAPTCHA system and were able to register and post hundreds of messages. Although this sort of spam is relatively easy to tidy up, it's a real pain. In the end I closed registration to this forum to prevent the continuing spam attack. I assumed that after a period, the attack would end and we could open registration again.

Last night I opened forum registration for new students and within hours we were besieged by automatic registrations and hundreds of spam posts. So, they're not giving up and won't be happy until the forum is rendered useless.

In an attempt to fight back, I have now implemented two new layers of protection. The forum now uses reCAPTCHA (http://http://recaptcha.net/) in place of the previous CAPTCHA system and registrants must now answer an additional question.

This is a strategy I have used in the past and it has been quite successful because most bots are designed only for attack on standard (unmodified) forums. By adding some bespoke registration requirements, the bots should be stopped. Only time will tell.

[rob]

fingers crossed for you David

Touch wood, I have not had many problems yet. I get the odd one here and there but managing to keep them under control.

New members signing up counts for more than the spammers so happy right now!

[David]

Well a week or so on and it looks like the new measures have stopped the spambots in their tracks but as some of you may have noticed, we are still attracting human spammers. This is annoying but much easier to deal with than the bots. Providing we keep deleting their links, they'll get bored after a while and go somewhere else because it requires too much effort from them for little gain. :)