Forum spamming
Filed under Site News on March 13, 2006
Tagged: phpBB
I’ve updated the software that runs my blog and forum. One feature I was unaware of until today–though it had been available for a couple versions–was visual confirmation of account creation for the forum. This is an anti-spambot feature that prevents computers from creating accounts by using images with random number and letter combinations. The account creator has to type in the combination in order to create the account. I’ve been getting 5 or more spambot-created accounts on my forum per day.
While the extra maintenance is annoying, I’m more dumbfounded by the ridiculousness of this scheme. The account name is randomly generated, does not provide any sort of hook, and is not a link to a website. The computer cannot post a message. To work, someone has to click on the account name either by browsing through the memberlist, or by clicking on the name at the bottom of the page during the window of time it appears as the “newest” member. Then, in the member profile, is a URL to the site being advertised. Even though the account creation is automated, and probably takes little processing power, I can’t imagine the ROI being anything worthwhile.
Anyway, I’ve activated the visual confirmation feature. Hopefully that will be the end of the spambots.
Related Posts
