Citroen XM Forum

Just had a look through the members list and noticed a couple of dodgy looking websites listed

Well spotted Dave, it seems the spam bots have arrived at last

I've deleted the three I saw there, but if I've missed anyway please post up

Ciarán

Time for a TC MOD to be applied to the board perhaps Ciarán?

It's been incredibly effective on the FCF and BXC under phpBB2 and since the MODS were applied not one spambot has got through...

Quite possibly Jim,

I wanted to avoid adding any mods because I've been making some code changes myself for the past week or so, however now that's stabalised, I'll see about sticking one or two on.

What are you using, spambot wise?

I'm actually quite impressed they're able to beat the image on registration!
They're coming at some rate too, I've been deleting at least 5 a day for the past week. Strange that they all register, but never post (bar that GTAMan one). I wonder do they all lie in wait for a while, then start posting spurious amounts of crap at random?

Ciarán

I've just applied the TC MOD to my Test FCF

Have a go at registering Ciarán and you'll see a very simple anti-bot question between the password fields.

The question can be changed in the ACP. Not as good as the equivilent MOD in phpBB2 where you can have a series of questions asked at random.

It works but I'd modify the templates personally to put the question below the password fields.

Editing code? That's brave

It really did not take them long to break the CAPTCHA

No, their whole gamut is to post web links in their profiles to various unsavory sites so the links get picked up by the web search engines as they crawl the forum. The more "hits" they can achieve on their links like this, the further up the search engine rankings they go.

They will never post and their registrations are completely automated, which is why a spambot question that changes the layout of the registration form works so well at defeating them.

Just realised why the anti-bot question is between the password fields. The bots expect the fields to follow each other and thus they will always answer the question wrongly

There's a whole host more there on the memberlist newly registered now although it's nice to see
Doublechevron and Thwartedefforts have signed in if not said hello yet!

Hi guys!!

Good God, there seem to be a lot of Xm's in far flung parts of the world with owners registering
on the forum from far flung places as:

Peru
Brazil
Pakistan
Togo
Iraq
China,
a load in Georgia
Bermuda
Finland
India
Iceland
and Slovenia.

Citroen did exceptionally well selling Xm's in some of these places that's for sure...

Anyone want to say Hi?

Andrew

There about 10-15 spammers in the ranks sadly.

I had meant to sort this out, but have been quite ill for a few days. I'll try and weed them out, and install the mod Kim suggested tonight

Ciarán

I've been suffering from a killer migraine all day and I distinctly HAVEN'T had a drop of alcohol though
it feels like the hangover from hell. It's totally debilitating and I've been on the forum most of this
afternoon trying to take my mind off it!!

Andrew

BTW, is that Kim or Jim!?

Andrew