Ok, so we all know that robots signing up on a website is a real pain. Many of them are smart enough to use OCR algorithms to beat the security image technique, but what if we asked a logic question? Or something that an everyday person would know, but no one would think of programming into one of these rogue robots.

I'm just testing a login system on my site right now, but I'm asking this as a security question:

Type the last name of our current President in lowercase backwards,
then the first name of our president in capitals forwards, then the
middle initial capitalized.

What do ya think? Would it be secure(ish) to write a bunch of questions like that and have them displayed randomly?

-Nathan

if you ask questions like those, no1 would sign up in your site

ps: when did we get robots?

I agree with cyrus, not everyone is good at aswering logic questions. Scholarship test have questions like that. Why not a more sophisiticated image? or the string "4+2+1="

Why not a more sophisiticated image? or the string "4+2+1="

Because these rogue spamming 'bots can read the images. At least I assume they can, because tons of forum's I'm registered on keep having these spamming robots registering. I believe they can do addition as well, I just suggested something like this because I didn't think a 'bot would be able to do it.

There's a difference. People manually register, then setup the bot to login and post in the forum.

I think answering a 4 + 4 question is good - I use this on my PHP contact form. Only very advanced bots can beat images, and these tend not to be used on the average web site.

Yea its only the advanced bots and usually the verification is the simplist settings.

With regards to questions, i think they might work but people dont like em much and some people are just erm stupid..
And i would also point out THE INTERNET IS WORLD WIDE not only americans and the US have access to the internet

Dan I know that, but who will be visiting an English site, that doesn't know enough English to answer a simple question?

I was on about the "our president" bit theres many countries many with presidents who speak english.

Im just saying he should be more worldy like spell the US president backwards or what ever Lol

i wont ask who painted the sunflowers as it seems at least one person would answer Steven Bradley XD

Dan

Dan

I'd say ask simple questions with multiple choice answers on a drop down box.

Like; Who is George W. Bush?
a) The president of the United States
b) A hamburger type at McDonalds
c) Canadian Prime Minister
d) The dictator of Iran.

Sorry thats to hard im stuck between choosing a Hamburger or dictator?

Can someone help me out? hehe

Delete the un-used language packs on a phpbb forum.
I found that one single act killed close to 70% of my bot problems.

Delete the un-used language packs on a phpbb forum.
I found that one single act killed close to 70% of my bot problems.

awsome let me try that

How does language packs effect bots??

Also you should think about this, 99/100 bots do not auto sign up. a (very stupid) human signs up and then the bot logs in and posts.

So you can never really beat the bots, if a human can sign up a bot can get on your forum

Dan
Talkupation Appreciated,

Originally Posted by dansgalaxy

How does language packs effect bots??

Also you should think about this, 99/100 bots do not auto sign up. a (very stupid) human signs up and then the bot logs in and posts.

So you can never really beat the bots, if a human can sign up a bot can get on your forum

Dan
Talkupation Appreciated,

You just answered your own question.
My forum is ONLY in french. You can't change to any other language and you can't change the theme. (template)

So an algerian/albanian/russian/etc spamer can't read the menu to sign up. If they can't sighn up they can't post.

Ok sorry i didnt think im not familar with PHPBB i thought it was just when you like change the language in the admin settings... which i still think it is

and i would point out im sure they will reconsise which link if they have already signed up to 100 forums... its all in the same place just the text is differant.

Dan

Dan, are you begging for TP or what?! I mean you write a fairly standard post and then write Talkupation appreciated - you've basically just given your opinion about something!

I think the best way to prevent bots signing in, is to have a CAPTCHA image or something under the login box - that would stop nearly all bots, except very advanced ones. It would be a bit annoying for users though

Its a habit every little helps

I need to chime in here as it sounds like all these replies have come from non-forum owner.

Phpbb bots are all smart enough to get around the CAPTCHA. Turning on image captcha will do nothing to stop the bots. A busy forum would easily get hundreds of spam accounts daily. The spammer almost never signs up manually and even if they do..that is the least of your worries. You need to be worried about the other 99% of automated spam.

This leaves you with 2 options.

1. Validate all your new users manually.

2. Create some sort of logic question during sign up. It doesn't have to be anything difficult. On my large forum I modded phpbb to have the user type in 'YES' to agree to our terms. This has stopped 99% of the spammers. Down from 10-20 a day to 2 in the last 6 months.

Okay, i do and have run quite a few forums. and from whati have read it seems alotog what you said it wrong.

The more professional Capacha cant (yet) be read using OCR - hell even humans have problems reading them.

Yes logical questions seem to be a gd thing to have.

Also for the spambots which sign up using a hidden files which if not blank dont accept as spam sign ups fill in all the fields.

as far as i know, usuallyon signups which have protection they are manually done,

Originally Posted by Ewan

I'd say ask simple questions with multiple choice answers on a drop down box.

Like; Who is George W. Bush?
a) The president of the United States
b) A hamburger type at McDonalds
c) Canadian Prime Minister
d) The dictator of Iran.

The president of Iran was actually elected in a more democratic manner - ie by the people, not the Supreme Court - than Mr W Bush.