Deterrence of Spam Postings

Bullhead · Post by **Bullhead** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 8:07 am

I notice that recently there have been almost daily spam postings advertising "other" (and I don't mean GWR) sites. I wonder whether requiring new members to register using a verifiable e-mail address such as that provided by their ISP rather than, say, Hotmail where multiple free accounts are available would deter this?

Tom Quayle · Post by **Tom Quayle** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:26 am

Just on that note I am on hotmail and cannot access the site at college without using my hotmail address. This would be 1 problem with this? But still sounds good on paper

Bullhead · Post by **Bullhead** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:59 am

Tom Quayle wrote:Just on that note I am on hotmail and cannot access the site at college without using my hotmail address. This would be 1 problem with this? But still sounds good on paper

You're already registered, so why would there be a problem?

Tom Quayle · Post by **Tom Quayle** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:16 am

Sorry miss interprited what you ment great idea them

Post by **richard** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 2:48 pm

There have been spam postings and silent sign-ups since almost the beginning. The graphical-image sign-up was switched on to help combat the robot-signups. That has helped, but it appears that spammers are using cheap labour as well as robots to perform the spamming.

As well as spam for you guys, the tidying-up time adds up for me!

This past week or so has been worse. I'm looking at different options.
Banning hotmail and yahoo wouldn't actually achieve very much. Yes it would stop some of them, but it would also stop a lot of legitimate people. Banning all .ru and .ro email and www addresses would catch a lot more, but it it is a bit broad for my tastes.

Maintaining a phpBB board with the various patches and MODs is difficult enough, so I'm also trying to avoid customising the actual code if I can help it.

Richard

Post by **richard** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 4:45 pm

I now have to authorise all new forum members. We'll see how this works...

Richard

Post by **richard** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:20 pm

Over the past week we've had a number of new members and spammers go through the authorisation system. There a number of pros and cons. The main positive result has been the complete lack of spam postings (previously about half of all spam signups posted spam postings). The main disadvantage is that the "delete spammer" procedure is still as fiddley as before. The only gain is that I don't have to delete the posts.

A minor disadvantage is that new members have to wait until I receive the activation email and act on it. Also some new members choose to use ambiguous emails. I understand why some people have free email addresses, but the use of (apparently) random letters for user ids, or combinations of innocent words that could be construed as names of wannabe porn stars, doesn't help!

Richard