lwood: (westria)
lwood ([personal profile] lwood) wrote2007-01-18 02:32 pm
Entry tags:

Westrian Forum Spammers Foiled Again

Ha!

http://www.westria.org/forum/register.php

Non-Geek version: Now, when people sign up for my bulletin board thingy, they have to answer a math question. Automated botnets set up to try and register on my (deliberately off-brand-but-actively-maintained) forum system will not expect this, and fail. Yay. Should the blighters get in anyway, another system will check posts over looking for Dastardly Activity, also yay.

Now if anyone ever posted...I'd be set.

Geek version:

I got the code, then jiggered the English parts and, with the help of [livejournal.com profile] feonixrift, made it a 50/50 shot you'd get a multiplication question instead of an addition one. Subtraction and division might have frightened people and/or required more elaborate checks; mustn't frighten off the mathematically illiterate.

Also, I swatted the n00b programmer, corrected his missing semicolon (ewps), and allowed as how it is Good Practice to use the long form of the php variable query instead of the short form, as the short form is not universally enabled, and therefore will hamstring the innocent, clueless administrator.

Like myself, until I waved the poor thing at [livejournal.com profile] feonixrift while hunting through php.ini for some distasteful setting.

Akismet is Doing the Right Thing--it successfully caught a spam post in its tracks.

Now if anyone ever posted...I'd be all set.

-- Lorrie

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting