jtr7 on 3/10/2008 at 08:32
I noticed that all of the ones I looked at are putting the same information in Occupation and Location. And the ones that have included a website in their profile are all porn-related.
Schattentänzer on 3/10/2008 at 11:15
If the registration page is passed to a human, there is no way to prevent a spammer from signing up. However, the latest onslought seems to be from clever bots, who got smarter with figuiring out captchas.
One rather clunky way to prevent this could be to put an additional box in, which needs a daily code or passphrase that is placed off-site or off-page, ie "Go to the FAQ page, copy the Menu of the Day and paste it in this box" (without a link). First line of the FAQ is 'Today's menu: blackpudding' (different phrase than in the instructions). Terrible nuisance for legitimate users though.
Nameless Voice on 3/10/2008 at 14:43
I say ask them random riddles when they sign up!
That might make it a bit awkward for legitimate people without English as their first language to sign up, though.
baeuchlein on 3/10/2008 at 23:39
Quote Posted by David
CAPTCHAs are solved by humans, not machines, which makes them pretty ineffective, but better than nothing.
The machine retrieves the CAPTCHA image, sends it back to a human operator who's sole job is to send the solutions back to the machine, which fills in the answer and carries on its merry way.
I just read about someone who had a very clever idea on how to recruit such human operators. This guy created a porn site, then told the people wanting to see anatomic details that they had to solve the CAPTCHAs in order to enter the page. Maybe he told them that was the only way to make sure they're not children, or whatever.
Anyhow, what the site
really did was, of course, something else. Actually, the guy was mainly a spammer, not a porn site owner, and used the people watching the porn to solve CAPTCHAs which were retrieved
from another site. Thus, the people solving the CAPTCHAs thought they had to do so in order to start their, ahem, anatomic studies, but they really helped Mr. Spam-a-Lot to solve the CAPTCHAs standing in between him (or rather his script) and the spammer's targets on those other sites.
But another small idea from me. What if one tried to look at the response times when sending a CAPTCHA or other task towards someone signing up? Extremely fast answers would be a good hint that there's a machine on the other end of the line. This could be useful at least for some kind of filter, giving the one looking at the new membership candidate a first impression of what kind of "candidate" this might be.
Kolya on 4/10/2008 at 03:50
Invitation codes. It's about time!
On this occasion I would like to welcome our newest member BSTeenSx.
D'Juhn Keep on 6/10/2008 at 13:39
Quote Posted by Schattentänzer
One rather clunky way to prevent this could be to put an additional box in, which needs a daily code or passphrase that is placed off-site or off-page, ie "Go to the FAQ page, copy the Menu of the Day and paste it in this box" (without a link). First line of the FAQ is 'Today's menu: blackpudding' (different phrase than in the instructions). Terrible nuisance for legitimate users though.
I made a really small phpBB forum that got shitloads of bot spammers. Making a box with the question "What colour is the sky?" got rid of 100% of them. Obviously it wouldn't work against people but it would help with some of them I suppose.
zombe on 6/10/2008 at 16:58
(\me looks outside) Black?
D'Juhn Keep on 6/10/2008 at 18:52
Goddamnit so THAT'S why nobody has registered for months
Gorgonseye on 6/10/2008 at 22:18
Quote Posted by jtr7
I noticed that all of the ones I looked at are putting the same information in Occupation and Location. And the ones that have included a website in their profile are all
porn-related.
.
Sxerks on 7/10/2008 at 17:46
Quote Posted by David
We do, but the CAPTCHAs are solved by humans, not machines, which makes them pretty ineffective, but better than nothing.
The machine retrieves the CAPTCHA image, sends it back to a human operator who's sole job is to send the solutions back to the machine, which fills in the answer and carries on its merry way.
Is there a way of displaying a CAPTCHA with java or flash so that there is no image file that can be retrieved? Without taking a screenshot that is, maybe have the CAPTCHA float around the screen;)
Or could the entire signup be done in flash?
