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Website updates

Sat, 12/04/2010 - 10:15am — admin

Our website was under attack by drones of spambots. Hundreds of fictitious users were registering each day just to post a meaningless comment with obscure links to some dubious websites. Log analysis showed these all were automated/script/spambot activities. Somehow they were bypassing CAPTCHA tests.

I scrambled to find a solution. I ended up writing a module I call "botcha" that filters form submissions based on anti-spambot principles. It works quite nicely, allowing real users to register without any additional burden. I kept CAPTCHA on the registration form for it remains proven technique for blocking over 95% of spammers.

Comments

Re: Website updates

Thu, 04/28/2011 - 9:01pm — Ronald Ibaraki

How safe are our login accounts and passwords?

ron

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Re: Website updates

Mon, 05/02/2011 - 6:33am — admin

Spambot attacks had nothing to do with user passwords. Attacks were trying to register for a multiple user accounts, so that they could post back-linking content to the website.

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Re: Website updates

Mon, 05/02/2011 - 6:31am — admin

User passwords are stored with strongest encryption.

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