Spambots

[iago]

Lately, we've been getting several registrations/day from spambots. We already had "require approval" enabled, so they haven't gotten through, but it also means that it's difficult to tell real people from bots. So, if you know somebody who's legitimately registering, either send me a PM or post on the forum or get them to email me or something.

[Skywing]

Can you just enable email validation instead of require approval, or are they actually wiring up enough logic to follow the activation links in the validation emails now?

[iago]

I've seen software that can follow the activation links, so it might. It'd definitely solving the most difficult CAPTCHA that a human can read (I tried the "hard" CAPTCHA but couldn't solve it), so I assume it's at least a decent bot. I'd rather not clean up spam. :)

[Newby]

We should write some sort of delayed activation. Randomly between 1 and 5 minutes after you register, it'll activate your account. Bots won't know how long to wait around, and I doubt they'd come back.

[Camel]

Years ago, I solved a problem like this by modifying the captcha to add moderately thick black bars over the letters. You certainly will have results that are not human readable with that approach, but most of them will be.

[iago]

I'm not too worried about "fixing" it, since it isn't really a problem. I've taken a couple steps to make sure we don't turn down real people, so everything should be fine.

[iago]

Heh, latest one signed up with:
    bsr.bot@gmail.com

At least he's being honest. :)

[Sidoh]

Hahaha.  We should let him post just for that. :)

[Lead]

If I'm not mistaken there's some kind of Meta Tags you can use to stop them from registering(?).

[Sidoh]

If I'm not mistaken there's some kind of Meta Tags you can use to stop them from registering(?).

Yeah, maybe if they give a shit what you tell them to do.  Spam bots rarely care about that, though. ;P

[Camel]

I read something about a proposed enhancement to SMTP, whereby emails that are not digitally signed with a legally binding contract that says "this is not spam," the MX rejects the message. Too bad it could never work :(