phpBB Spam prevention?

[Rekka Alexiel]

Hey guys, I'm running a small message board that uses the phpBB system as this board uses. I'm pretty new to this set up, but I'm slowly learning.

Recently, we've been getting hit by spam bots and fake accounts. I was wondering if anyone would know of a good way to keep these bots and spammers out? I can't remember a time when this board has been hit with anything like that, so something must work!! If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks!!

[zerospace]

I still manage a board that uses the SMF (Simple Machines Forum) system, myself. Some possible options might be to restrict registrations via an invitation system and/or use a captcha (you know, those annoying things that make you type a set of characters from an image) system for new registrations. These may require modifications to your phpBB board, though -- it's been a long time since I've looked at the admin side of phpBB.

[Fireye]

The bots hit my WoW guilds phpBB forum back in Feb. Recaptcha no longer was effective at keeping them out. I ended up switching from self-activated accounts to admin activated, since we hadn't had a valid NEW user in many months. I get lots of emails saying "<spammername> has registered!", which I ignore. If you move to a knowledge-based captcha, asking a textual question and requesting a specific type of reply, you might have better luck at keeping bots out.

[Rekka Alexiel]

I still manage a board that uses the SMF (Simple Machines Forum) system, myself. Some possible options might be to restrict registrations via an invitation system and/or use a captcha (you know, those annoying things that make you type a set of characters from an image) system for new registrations. These may require modifications to your phpBB board, though -- it's been a long time since I've looked at the admin side of phpBB.

I've noticed a lot of spammers were using IPs that started with 31, 178, 188, and some others. I've banned those IP ranges to try to and stop them. I've turned off registrations temporarily until I can figure out a way to fix this from happening--we just got hammered with a ton of spammers, some posting some pretty lewd photos, too. orz Do you suggest manual new user approval before anyone's allowed to post? There is a captcha thing set up already, but it certainly wasn't working during this attack. :p

The bots hit my WoW guilds phpBB forum back in Feb. Recaptcha no longer was effective at keeping them out. I ended up switching from self-activated accounts to admin activated, since we hadn't had a valid NEW user in many months. I get lots of emails saying "<spammername> has registered!", which I ignore. If you move to a knowledge-based captcha, asking a textual question and requesting a specific type of reply, you might have better luck at keeping bots out.

Yeah, I'm thinking this is what I'll have to do. Programming other stuff for these boards is really difficult for me. It took me forever just to figure out how to get the top image to display the way I wanted it to. orz I think my brain has lost all of its affinity for programming. haha

Thanks for your help, guys!! And sorry it took me this long to get back to you! m(_ _)m

[zerospace]

Wow, so they've beaten Recaptcha? That's pretty awful. I would always use admin-activated accounts (definitely not user-activated, even e-mail activations) -- I've been doing that for a long time with SMF. I actually got to the point where I completely disabled registration and went to an invite only system to keep the spam bots from even trying to register. It's pretty sad how bad the bots have gotten these days.

[Rekka Alexiel]

Wow, so they've beaten Recaptcha? That's pretty awful. I would always use admin-activated accounts (definitely not user-activated, even e-mail activations) -- I've been doing that for a long time with SMF. I actually got to the point where I completely disabled registration and went to an invite only system to keep the spam bots from even trying to register. It's pretty sad how bad the bots have gotten these days.

Well, actually I hadn't activated reCAPTCHA when the attack hit. I was just using the built in spam prevention, which apparently did very little. I've got the reCAPTCHA going now and changed registration to manual, so hopefully that will fix things. *sigh* This certainly is a lot of work just to help a minority of people voice their thoughts.