Stopping Spambots from Posting to Discussion Board

[ddruck]

What is the best practice for inhibiting a web crawler from making posts to a
FP Discussion Board?. My server is running Apache. Can this be summarizied?
(I have found similar threads which lead to either sketchy suggestions for
editing htaccess, image content confirmation, or simply "rotza ruck". Can
anyone give a perspective and perhaps other resource pages as left w/o
solutions. this is a major functional vunerability of FP and I don't want
any more reasons to say goodbye to my investments

 

[Mike Mueller]

: What is the best practice for inhibiting a web crawler
from making posts to a
: FP Discussion Board?.

---> best method would be to use a secured directory.

My server is running Apache. Can this be summarizied?
: (I have found similar threads which lead to either sketchy
suggestions for
: editing htaccess, image content confirmation, or simply
"rotza ruck". Can
: anyone give a perspective and perhaps other resource pages
as left w/o
: solutions. this is a major functional vunerability of FP
and I don't want
: any more reasons to say goodbye to my investments
----> This is not an FP vulerability- it is the
vulnerability of having a form on an unsecured site. The
spambots are not looking for FP server extensions, or FP
code. They are looking for forms in general and trying to
fill them out. My guestbook does not use any FP components,
and it gets hit too. As it is a guestbook, I do not many
options besides what you have already found. With a
discussion board you can at least have a login to get to it.
My image confirmation has stopped the spam I get

Mike

 

[ddruck]

Thanks Mike, could you provide any more information or resources on what your
image confirmation routine is?, thanks in advance

 

[Mike Mueller]

I made up a static image and have another form field asking
for what it is. I use a script page to read the form and I
check the value of that field. If it is OK then it goes on,
if it is bad it returns them to the form


: Thanks Mike, could you provide any more information or
resources on what your
: image confirmation routine is?, thanks in advance
:
: "Mike Mueller" wrote:
:
message
: >
: > : What is the best practice for inhibiting a web crawler
: > from making posts to a
: > : FP Discussion Board?.
: >
: > ---> best method would be to use a secured directory.
: >
: > My server is running Apache. Can this be summarizied?
: > : (I have found similar threads which lead to either
sketchy
: > suggestions for
: > : editing htaccess, image content confirmation, or
simply
: > "rotza ruck". Can
: > : anyone give a perspective and perhaps other resource
pages
: > as left w/o
: > : solutions. this is a major functional vunerability of
FP
: > and I don't want
: > : any more reasons to say goodbye to my investments
: > ----> This is not an FP vulerability- it is the
: > vulnerability of having a form on an unsecured site.
The
: > spambots are not looking for FP server extensions, or FP
: > code. They are looking for forms in general and trying
to
: > fill them out. My guestbook does not use any FP
components,
: > and it gets hit too. As it is a guestbook, I do not many
: > options besides what you have already found. With a
: > discussion board you can at least have a login to get to
it.
: > My image confirmation has stopped the spam I get
: >
: > Mike
: >
: >
: >

 

[Rob Giordano \(Crash\)]

I've done it with just the FP form. Made one of those squiggly images with a
number on it, then a form field that validates that number...nothing
fancy...and I haven't gotten any spambot hits at all since then...a few
wacko manual entries thats about it.