What's with all the spam John?

I've noticed recently there are a lot of spam threads started from bots. You should really get a grip on this. It doesn't happen on any other forums I visit.

Other (newer) versions of phpBB have bot-stopping technology, including the obfuscated code thingy that one must manually key into a form in order to activate an account. Perhaps an upgrade here is forthcoming...?

It's been a while since this thread was started, and I've noticed the spam posts have gotten worse, not better, over time. I'm sure John and the other moderators are getting tired of deleting the bogus accounts and threads, just as we members are at seeing them clutter our wonderous resource! :) I've been doing a little research into phpBB spam vulnerabilities, and in doing so, I came across this anti-spam check report. Nevertheless, it does point out that a robot can easily set up an account on this system, which happens several times each day... And some of the porn spam in particular has been getting a lot worse. There's a great "Preventing SPAM - Bots and Humans" thread over on the phpBB Community forum that includes a number of excellent suggestions on how to eliminate or at least control spam. I know I'd be more than happy to make another donation, one specifically towards an effort to cut the spam! 8) --Keith :mrgreen: P.S.: I should point out having "phpBB" in the URL, while not a good thing, shouldn't be changed now, as that would break all links to threads on the board.

I've been deleting them as I see them. If there are others I've missed or they are posting inside of other threads, drop me a PM, and I'll be glad to delete them. Aaron

Yeah - I have to delete around 20 bots per day - I'm slowly eliminating some by banning email addresses like mail.ru ;) cheers john

So......... Are you or your hosting company going to get phpBB updated so that the problem diminishes? We greatly appreciate the fact that you and others are working so hard to delete the crap, but wouldn't you rather spend your valuable time doing something else? --Keith :mrgreen:

It's getting really old......... Deleting the threads as they appear is akin to trying to extinguish fires after they've started... Not to mention I don't think most of us moderators have the ability to delete an account. :roll: How about some fire prevention tactics? Can we please get phpBB updated on this site? The version we're running here is really old and is a spam magnet. I'm an Information Technology pro, John, so please let me know if you need any assistance and/or for me to lead the effort. --Keith :mrgreen:

Anything to report, John? (Bump)