#1 2008-01-30 1:05 am

KeeKee

Member

Registered: 2008-01-30

Posts: 3

PHPBB-The humanizer

Hello, I'm still learning about this IP stuff and have enjoyed reading the post here.

I have a question concerning the PHPBB Humanizer mod. Does it really cut out the spammers or is it sort of as useless as the captcha in your opinions?

The one mod I have that I need to remove from my boards is the weather mod since it no longer works (phpbb2) However it has been a great mod for spotting spammers as they almost always fill the field out with 123456, If I knew programming better I would find a way to leave that field in the registration.
I can look at a php code and have an idea if colons and such are missing or out of place but that is the extent of it at this point.

Anyway will stop jabbering so the question don't get lost 

Captain Red

Member

Registered: 2008-01-04

Posts: 59

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

Off the top: I don't know how well it works. This thread is where I default to when I want to know about phpbb anti-spam mods.  There's a few paragraphs in there that I'll quote for ya here, though:

What bots can't do is rational thinking. People do this extremely well and that's the key to stopping bots. The most straightforward way to implement this is to ask a question that requires thinking to answer. What is the color of milk?, for instance, is a simple question that's easy to answer for a person; impossible for a bot unless it's already had the question/answer combination programmed into it. Not only that, but unlike CAPTCHAs that rely on pattern recognition, blind and visually impaired people can solve these challenges.

The best implementation of this will ask a question, chosen at random, from a pool of questions written by each forum administrator. This way the possible question/answer combinations are endless and getting past them by bots would require more time and effort than simply having a person manually register and post to each forum, so they should be effective for quite some time to come. A lesser implementation will ask the same question each time. If a spammer grabs that question and associates it to your site they will be able to return and register or post as often as they want until you change the question. Although it may be unlikely they will do that, it is still a possibility. Any questions written should be answered by something other than yes or no as programming a bot to supply either as an answer for any unknown question will be successful half the time when encountering a question with those possibilities as an answer.

Mods that implement this type of challenge are Anti Bot Question (the one I use), Textural Confirmation, Security Question (asks only a single, unchanging question), Registration Auth Code (RAC) (asks only a single, unchanging question) and The Humanizer (not recommended because it asks a single, unchanging question with a yes or no answer). Adding one of the first two mods on the list will give you the best shield against bots; the Security Question and RAC mods somewhat less because of the single question, but one of these four is the minimum that's needed to stop the onslaught of spam, however you may wish to spend a few minutes more and make the spammers job harder and less rewarding.

As it says, yes or no questions can be solved blindly with fifty percent accuracy... so that's one strike.  Another might come from the popularity of the mod, if it is popular.(the more places the mod is run, the more incentive there is for it to be cracked by spammers)

The best idea, if you can pull it off(either by yourself or borrowing someone's expertise), is to build something unique to your site.  If yours is a larger forum, this will work better and last longer than just about anything you can find pre-built, and if it's a smaller one, it might be that nobody ever expends the effort to crack it.

susato

Member

Registered: 2007-12-01

Posts: 18

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

KeeKee - see Russ's posts here about "commenting out" the html display of certain registration fields. 

Most bots detect and fill in registration fields without checking whether normal people can see them, so if a registrant fills out a field invisible to humans, it must be a bot.

This may be one way for you to use the weather mod.

Russ

Guest

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

I did notice yesterday a couple of spammers successfully registered on one of my forums. That means they got past the "fake registration fields in the comment" trick.

Whether they were just human spammers who signed up or a new kind of evolved spambot I am not sure.

KeeKee

Member

Registered: 2008-01-30

Posts: 3

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

Thank you for the replies and link.  I had when installing mods read almost all of that spam thread stuff but I think to someone new to coding it can get confusing when you read that it works but you need to modify this and that of the code.
The gentleman helping me learn moding the boards insist on me using easymod which I guess is good for beginners because you can see before and after and learn.
I have a couple of the auto ban mods installed memberlist hidden and such but am looking for a way to lock things down a little tighter before concentrating on trying to draw people to the boards.

yannick

Member

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2008-01-12

Posts: 15

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

I did notice yesterday a couple of spammers successfully registered on one of my forums. That means they got past the "fake registration fields in the comment" trick.

Whether they were just human spammers who signed up or a new kind of evolved spambot I am not sure.

or it were real users. Smurf and myself signed up here and were directly added as a spammer...maybe we missed something but I don't know.

Russ

Guest

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

That was because I screwed up and forgot to re-comment the extra fields on the signup page.

Captain Red

Member

Registered: 2008-01-04

Posts: 59

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

I did notice yesterday a couple of spammers successfully registered on one of my forums. That means they got past the "fake registration fields in the comment" trick.

Whether they were just human spammers who signed up or a new kind of evolved spambot I am not sure.

Might be a borg thing: humans breaking through countermeasures for bots.(or there might be some bots ignoring commented fields now)  The former option is less bothersome, to me, than the latter for some reason.

Itchy

Member

Registered: 2008-02-13

Posts: 4

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

Lo all just a quick message to say....... now at last im spam free

i put up a forum a year or so ago didnt do nothing to it just left it on admin approve member when i came back a week or so ago id found my old forum had 3000+ members 2990+ odd where yes youve guessed it spam

so i went to war 1st id check logs to see who had signed up going straight to the registar page so id ban the ip they'll come back so id ban the whole ip address block ... they came back so i blocked the whole country ha ...... some of em came back in the end i ended up banning half the world and got rid of 90% of spam but theres still the od one getting through and i was find through looking at the logs that some people who had found the site via search engines where getting blocked   so i went on a mission and the out come is my forum spam free the spammers spammer in the bin ..... now heres what i did....

i installed  Links Rejector 1.2.1 , Anti-spam ACP and TextualConfirmation-1.0.1   all can be downloaded from phpbbhacks 

links rejector allows you to set guest posting and no guest will be able to post a link or email address if they do an email is sent to the forum admin with details of what was trying to be posted.

Anti-spam ACP  hides the website box and signature box etc from sign up profile any autosubbmission bots that try to add info to one of the missing boxes an email is sent to admin with details etc -  you can also set post limits as to when they will appear for a user

TextualConfirmation adds a question box so everyone who signs up has to answer a question these are set in the ACP

All these mods send you the spammers ip address etc so ban that
the TextualConfirmation and Links Rejector are by the same person you can stop the email being sent by changing th email address in side the .php files you upload. by installing these mods ive unbanned the world via htacess
now its been a little while since ive installed these mods and not one bit of spam has got through

but a human spammer could get through providing the could read english and work out the question :0)

so if you want to stop auto spam install the above and laugh at them spammers

so if you want to try it out for your selfs a forum is www. thephoneforum .co.uk  feel free to try and spam but if you try and guest spam atleast type something in the message box like
OI ITCHY IM TRYING IT OUT SO DONT BAN ME PLEASE MISTER I ANIT NO SPAMMER!!
and use a user name like
  stopforumspam
and then i should pick you out

List of all IP the above mods have picked up as spam from 2 forums im running  no doubt some if not all will be on your list

Current IP addresses being blocked
72.90.73.3   
124.217.253.6   
74.200.80.101   
89.106.23.15   
124.217.252.193   
217.11.233.207   
90.156.169.224   
80.236.31.49   
84.19.178.147   
66.199.231.218   
64.28.183.180   
64.28.185.77   
64.28.185.78   
64.28.185.   
64.28.176.0/20   
81.0.195.237   
64.28.181.28   
64.28.181.29   
64.28.181.   
64.28.185.76   
64.28.   
89.156.156.245   
125.242.37.101   
80.154.39.102   
218.56.97.177   
85.114.130.205   
89.0.23.225   
91.122.152.76   
87.118.70.8   
85.140.39.12   
66.45.233.77   
85.114.133.77   
85.114.   
195.2.114.31   
192.116.45.29   
91.199.112.8   
124.161.4.35   
78.37.150.99   
4.156.150.151   
77.91.227.179   
72.36.132.226   
59.52.254.223   
62.96.106.202   
61.61.132.129   
81.88.112.0/21   
87.99.64.0/19   
195.2.114.0/27   
91.139.151.132   
67.86.236.146   
66.54.0.0/18   
85.29.204.193   
87.118.98.122   
62.50.162.154   
89.0.170.123   
84.19.188.30   
222.221.6.144   
90.231.145.122   
71.85.207.69   
24.184.222.48   
24.21.211.181   
91.77.92.10   
80.154.33.240   
76.90.237.252   
190.225.8.22   
216.80.124.225   
72.232.204.218   
202.84.17.42   
220.160.127.221   
69.177.95.240   
89.149.254.13   
211.142.116.205   
85.255.118.12   
85.255.120.202   
72.178.155.242   
69.217.73.52   
69.115.242.83   
70.161.245.253   
66.230.230.230   
212.142.143.116   
82.115.76.37   
24.205.59.248   
87.118.118.254   
165.194.114.99   
194.204.24.64   
82.207.115.117   
69.124.141.141   
72.9.109.250   
84.25.24.252   
87.118.116.175   
64.15.129.25   
38.100.41.105   
201.248.88.130   
123.232.108.98   
216.32.70.162   
75.125.0.130

Last edited by Itchy (2008-02-13 9:54 pm)

johnnaasdotcom

Member

Registered: 2007-12-22

Posts: 6

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

Textual confirmation is where its at. I installed it on my forum and over 200 spambot attempts later, not one has gotten through! Its changed the way I manage my forum for sure.....

Itchy

Member

Registered: 2008-02-13

Posts: 4

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

Textual confirmation is where its at. I installed it on my forum and over 200 spambot attempts later, not one has gotten through! Its changed the way I manage my forum for sure.....

add this and you wont even see a auto spammer

http://www.stopforumspam.com/forum/t58- … hash_0.1.0

running 2 forums both have Textual confirmation one has unique_registration_hash_0.1.0 the one with hasnt had one auto spammer get through to the sign up page let along submitting it where as the other still getting sign ups but their not being allowed in as they didnt answer the question. Depending on what version of Textual confirmation you got you can stop the emails from being sent by removing the email address in the .php file ;0) although i dont know why he still whats the emails as hes not doing anything with them.

Since my last posting added these ip's to my spammers list all ips list are either failed Textual confirmation spammers or guest spammers (check out link guard i think its called that by the writer of Textual confirmation) allows guest posting to be on but any spam contact info doesnt get added but allows you to black list em ;0).
Another thing ive learnt in my battle against spam is to look at your web logs when you get an email telling you of a spammers ip address look for this address in your logs take note of the Agent then look at the agent entry that was before the ip you just looked up most of the time im finding another 2 or 3 IP address that they have used to check if the register page is available if it is they swap IP's then try to join up so they get banned as well, you will then start to see a pattern where as your get lots of 403 errors(access denied) and you its genrally the same person going through thier list of ip address untill they get one that returns the 200 code and then they change IP address again and try to sign up which is good because you can then add those new IP's to ya list and it starts all over again but its taking them a long time to try and find an ip thats not on the list .. id also recommend adding the ban list from this site and then they really have got problems trying to get through all that spam prevention.

193.238.213.70   
200.27.116.188   
72.232.162.34   
69.140.101.144   
71.83.208.76   
202.176.209.69   
60.213.44.108   
24.47.182.13   
68.48.135.51   
222.173.183.150   
222.161.2.70   
58.238.11.29   
74.53.244.130   
83.3.45.77   
66.114.226.44   
68.61.185.77   
83.237.197.65   
24.78.183.83   
80.154.39.154   
67.188.101.155   
218.57.11.112   
221.233.194.61   
210.124.122.136   
70.245.66.35   
211.116.254.203   
207.112.57.134   
212.12.176.202   
89.28.3.241   
60.190.79.24   
87.116.173.219   
72.9.109.251   
66.225.230.57   
212.175.105.8   
77.232.68.17   
83.213.206.165   
84.108.126.49   
217.65.12.4   
211.202.2.64   
67.84.122.201   
87.174.48.20   
67.160.28.115   
82.127.58.180   
79.120.192.211   
69.80.227.79   
65.78.79.71   
211.99.222.19   
66.125.60.156   
89.18.176.98   
125.47.41.166   
200.242.95.121   
89.0.11.69   
85.140.248.148   
67.164.39.84   
61.240.128.88   
61.136.63.125   
87.17.180.188   
69.145.161.136   
221.226.124.171   
68.38.120.8   
76.103.249.0   
85.140.248.84   
219.175.12.92       
70.120.235.190   
210.49.128.179   
87.118.122.24   
65.191.126.97   
75.143.184.121   
68.49.109.97   
81.88.121.30   
194.176.118.41   
90.156.169.229   
87.7.126.16   
221.12.147.80   
219.148.206.3   
195.132.196.180   
149.67.177.157   
67.185.154.32   
193.238.213.69   
71.16.119.214   
69.149.75.153   
222.161.2.80   
24.21.160.103   
82.224.211.76   
85.255.121.202   
85.140.183.53   
75.53.1.246   
76.193.177.245   
89.0.41.16   
68.191.242.67   
24.129.196.68   
70.255.201.241   
64.148.189.237   
76.110.131.6   
89.0.20.177   
69.212.33.148   
195.229.242.154   
212.76.228.191   
88.76.33.196   
62.117.142.68   
58.56.87.2   
195.250.155.54   
195.250.155.53   
192.35.30.0/23   
192.35.32.0/22   
192.35.36.0/24   
200.249.65.130   
210.99.208.40   
89.0.62.248   
98.212.52.159   
91.168.16.89   
85.140.182.93   
85.68.249.189   
77.41.109.216   
75.109.99.127   
90.156.169.227   
202.218.144.1   
189.47.141.3   
221.206.91.189   
212.20.96.24   
81.65.248.244   
74.53.244.133   
85.179.21.71   
71.241.179.229   
61.243.163.247   
222.77.84.6   
202.115.130.23   
221.1.217.91   
89.0.207.184   
89.0.0.0/15   
82.224.147.88   
222.170.150.18   
211.117.62.81   
69.145.241.221   
76.169.139.121   
212.27.48.0/24   
87.118.116.147   
201.236.8.200   
201.243.73.149   
24.214.183.83   
69.92.61.119   
70.124.19.132   
81.202.15.247   
69.242.34.56   
72.225.17.111   
213.89.42.141   
78.107.197.113   
66.55.128.0/19   
74.76.221.64   
61.35.100.131   
219.131.187.22   
200.171.139.199   
189.4.242.131   
208.75.88.34   
211.144.214.130   
83.237.197.210   
219.136.230.60   
92.113.131.178   
69.19.14.33   
189.5.37.190   
69.253.225.241   
203.29.67.73   
71.80.223.201

saintsteven

Member

Registered: 2008-03-06

Posts: 1

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

Two other excellent phpBB mods are:

Anti-Spam ACP by EXreaction

and

http:BL  distributed by Project Honey Pot

the123king

Member

Registered: 2008-03-23

Posts: 33

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

Two other excellent phpBB mods are:

Anti-Spam ACP by EXreaction

and

http:BL  distributed by Project Honey Pot

I do ahve to admit that Anti-Spam control panel is one of the best MODs i've seen for getting rid of spam. I'm going to install the anti-bot question MOD to catch those (plentiful...) bot's that have got through the anti-spam ACP.

Russ

Guest

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

Speaking of mods for phpBB, I'd love to create on that modifies the registration to check detail against the list here via the API. I don't know how to create one though.

the123king

Member

Registered: 2008-03-23

Posts: 33

Re: PHPBB-The humanizer

Speaking of mods for phpBB, I'd love to create on that modifies the registration to check detail against the list here via the API. I don't know how to create one though.

Seeing as i've taken over development of the Anti-Spam ACP, i'm going to attempt to combine the API (Or the MySql queries) with a new panel which would add an internal spammers database, updateable from here