Cybertronian Bot Protection

[Nomad]

Nothing major here, but would it be possible to add an additional field (such as a custom question & answer) to the sign up page?

Right now, all we really have to prevent bots from registering & posting their scrap is the standard word/image verification (the image with letters on it), and all of the custom ones (favorite toy, etc) will accept anything as long as their filled in. Addbots can get around this stuff pretty easily, and that's likely why we get them as often as we do.

If you don't wanna do transformers themed stuff in fear of turning around less avid fans or making it troublesome to make an account, it could be as simple as asking how many sides a square has, how many wheels a car has (accepting several answers to account for numbers, letters, three wheelers, people who count the steering wheel, etc), what planet the person lives on (accepting the names of all planets, including cybertron, primus, etc), or even what colour grass traditionally is. You could probably start with that one, and then add something more complex if bots start figuring it out.

Now, I don't know what vB call this, but the point is to create a custom field that only accept things you tell it to accept, and one that's simple enough for real people to be able to answer in a few seconds. I enabled one of these on my forum a few months ago, and haven't seen a single bot come through since. Mind you, part of the problem on my end had to do with bots signing on with their facebook/Twitter accounts (we have a feature that allows this) & being able to skip certain security measures as a result, but bots can be set up to automatically validate their accounts anyway, so I know the custom field still helped.


Additionally (aka, if this doesn't work for whatever reason), you could move onto modify the "email validating" group itself so that they can't post for 15 minutes or otherwise remain on mod preview for that time (sort of what Hisstank does, but maybe for a shorter time), but I don't think this'll be necessary for such a small site, especially if the custom grass field is installed.


Thanks for looking at this, and I hope it can help.

- Nomad

[Super_Megatron]

Thanks for the suggestion. The bots know math too well so I changed the authenication question in place and it seems to have helped.

[Nomad]

Hope it works.