Bot registration protection

Not for 'how-to' coding questions but PHP theory instead, this forum is here for those of us who wish to learn about design aspects of programming with PHP.

Moderator: General Moderators

User avatar
fresh
Forum Contributor
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:39 am
Location: Amerika

Post by fresh »

question.. does bots come quipped with a user-agent.. since it is not assigned one by the registry like IE or Mozilla is? If not, then the lack of one could be an identifying mark and one could make a check point for that alone and stop all bots if not most.

regards

P.s. Check this:

1. Blind :: Seperate page for text based ONLY, compliant with reader
2. Deaf :: Seperate page for text based ONLY, compliant with reader
3. Ampatee :: Nothing should be done, can enlarge display
4. Mentally handicap :: Nothing should be done, needs shaparone

So again, a seperate .txt file for all pages textual content should be effiecient.
timvw
DevNet Master
Posts: 4897
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 11:11 pm
Location: Leuven, Belgium

Post by timvw »

5. Financial handicap :: Printout the pages for those without a PC :p
User avatar
fresh
Forum Contributor
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:39 am
Location: Amerika

Post by fresh »

lol.. i fall under that category.. im so broke i look at a lottery ticket as an investment. :)
User avatar
feyd
Neighborhood Spidermoddy
Posts: 31559
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:24 pm
Location: Bothell, Washington, USA

Post by feyd »

8O
User avatar
fresh
Forum Contributor
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:39 am
Location: Amerika

Post by fresh »

shisam.. here we go feyd, this should take care of ALL bots forever. Simply include a checkbox at the bottom of the posting form along with disable smilies, etc.. make it's value on the form say something like: 'If you are NOT a bot check this box', make some error checking for forgetful users and bots that wont know to tick the checkbox, which will halt the posting process and thus will eliminate all spams made by bots for good, or until they wise up.

regards
User avatar
onion2k
Jedi Mod
Posts: 5263
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:03 pm
Location: usrlab.com

Post by onion2k »

fresh wrote:2. Deaf :: Seperate page for text based ONLY, compliant with reader
Whats stopping deaf people using an ordinary page with images and stuff?
timvw
DevNet Master
Posts: 4897
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 11:11 pm
Location: Leuven, Belgium

Post by timvw »

that's evil :P

a computer-voice reading machine... for deaf people
User avatar
John Cartwright
Site Admin
Posts: 11470
Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2003 2:10 am
Location: Toronto
Contact:

Post by John Cartwright »

oh the madness :roll:
shisam.. here we go feyd, this should take care of ALL bots forever. Simply include a checkbox at the bottom of the posting form along with disable smilies, etc.. make it's value on the form say something like: 'If you are NOT a bot check this box', make some error checking for forgetful users and bots that wont know to tick the checkbox, which will halt the posting process and thus will eliminate all spams made by bots for good, or until they wise up.
wait a second, whats the stop the bot from ticking the checkmark? :?
User avatar
fresh
Forum Contributor
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:39 am
Location: Amerika

Post by fresh »

well they would have to hard code that in, which would mean more work for the drones and as far as i can tell spammers are lazy as hell.. but other than pure laziness, I suppose nothing would keep them from ticking the box.. however, introducing a new format would by you the time to think of something more permanent.. and could perhaps sway a percentage of spammers from even attempting to utilise this forum or any forum as a depo for spam.. :D
AGISB
Forum Contributor
Posts: 422
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2004 1:23 am

Post by AGISB »

Well as the bot would submit to the page your form submits to the checkbox is nothing more than one variable he simply has to add to the submit.

You simply need something that the bot cannot automatically know when it submits. Like the hash I described above
User avatar
fresh
Forum Contributor
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:39 am
Location: Amerika

Post by fresh »

what do you mean the captcha thing or the using one key at both ends thing? I would say between the two that the captcha concept would prove to be more secure, especially since brute-force can be taking advantage of in the case of supplying a valid constant string. But then again, I haven't seen a PoC concerning the hash concept you said you implemented on your own site, until I see it I can only assume it is less secure.

regards

EDIT: One way to prevent from advertising to spammers is to remove these lines from index.php
index.php wrote: Our users have posted a total of 150481 articles
We have 13805 registered users
Most users ever online was 276 on Thu Dec 30, 2004 8:22 pm
indeed impressive but if I were a spammer those three lines would suggest to me a great place to point my bot and I even get an approximate day and time too.. I think that a number of things will be done to beat the bots and I think that removing advertisements such as those above is a progressive move.
magicrobotmonkey
Forum Regular
Posts: 888
Joined: Sun Mar 21, 2004 1:09 pm
Location: Cambridge, MA

Post by magicrobotmonkey »

combine the checkbox idea with a random string that is both assigned to the name of the checkbox and passed through the session or something and you might have somethins.
malcolmboston
DevNet Resident
Posts: 1826
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2003 1:09 pm
Location: Middlesbrough, UK

Post by malcolmboston »

this is crazy......

honestly out of the big commercial site, how many are compatable w/ text based browsers such as lynx and braille devices
User avatar
onion2k
Jedi Mod
Posts: 5263
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:03 pm
Location: usrlab.com

Post by onion2k »

malcolmboston wrote:this is crazy......

honestly out of the big commercial site, how many are compatable w/ text based browsers such as lynx and braille devices
You'd be suprised. For example, bbc.co.uk works in everything. It even still works in Netscape 1..
malcolmboston
DevNet Resident
Posts: 1826
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2003 1:09 pm
Location: Middlesbrough, UK

Post by malcolmboston »

BBC offers a text-only service which was obviously built for accessibility issues and internet speed problems.

however BBC is the exception to this case, many sites are now built from PSD's, a99% of sites that does this will not work properly for braille and text-only services.
Post Reply