How To Stop Spammer Into My Phpbbs

[sychen]

I am using phpBBS 2.0.19 now. I found that there are spammers continueously rigistering into my forum. What I do not is I check the register info of every new comer before I approve. However this is really exhausting.

 

I believe they are using some autmatic mechanism, not real human beings. Is there a way I can stop this ?

 

Oh....and.......I think I have asked this before, but still not sure how to do it. Now phpBBS only requires very basic information for the new come to register. Is there a way I can enforce more requirement in the fill-in form ?

 

 

Thanks again for the help.

 

Regards

S-Y. Chen

[cajunman4life]

It's been a while since I have used phpBB, however I believe there should be a setting where instead of you approving new accounts, the user who created the account has to approve it by clicking a link that is sent to the email address they used to register. That put a complete stop to the spam I was getting on my phpBB board.

[TCH-JimE]

Hello,

 

If you visit the phpBB.com website and look under modifcations, there is a simple mod which changes the name of the form processed for logging on, this fools a great deal of spam engines as they mostly are automated scripts.

 

JimE

[abinidi]

It seems like you can turn on an image-verification setting in phpBB, so that new users have to pass the image-verification test in order to set up an account.

 

This doesn't work in all themes, though, so when you are testing it out, be sure to be using the defaul theme. Then if it doesn't work after you change the theme, you will know it was theme trouble that kept it from working correctly.

 

Good luck!

[abinidi]

Yep. I found the setting on phpBB. It's called Visual Confirmation.

 

Enable Visual Confirmation

Requires users enter a code defined by an image when registering.

 

So, log in to your phpBB admin panel, click on Configuration (its under the General Admin section).

 

The eighth option is "Enable Visual Confirmation". Set it to "yes" and click the Submit button at the bottom of the page. (You'll have to scroll to see the Submit button.)

 

 

This is a good step for you if you have non-blind users. Users who are blind (or other users that excusively use a screen reader) won't be able to create an account using this method, and they will have to contact you to create an account.

[sychen]

Yes I have followed your instruction. Thanks a lot ! I will wait for few days to see if this is working.

 

It is strange that, it seemed like I already have visual confirmation on. However I have set it again.

 

Thanks again !

 

Regards

S-Y. Chen

 

 

 

Yep. I found the setting on phpBB. It's called Visual Confirmation.

So, log in to your phpBB admin panel, click on Configuration (its under the General Admin section).

 

The eighth option is "Enable Visual Confirmation". Set it to "yes" and click the Submit button at the bottom of the page. (You'll have to scroll to see the Submit button.)

This is a good step for you if you have non-blind users. Users who are blind (or other users that excusively use a screen reader) won't be able to create an account using this method, and they will have to contact you to create an account.

[TCH-JimE]

I also suggest you look up the anti spammers mod for phpBB, it changes a few simple form lines and it really works

 

JimE

[abinidi]

Oh, and make sure that by default your forums require that you be registered to post.

 

Sometimes the settings are such that people can post replies to threads even if they aren't subscribed. So you'll want to change that setting.

 

Let us know how it goes!!