“Who ya gonna call?”

:-)

Here's one thing someone said on a phpbb board…

Snooty wrote:It may have been mentioned before, but for those new to this mod:
You MUST change the default security question (how many days in a year- 365)

I didn't, and still had 40+ spammers a day. I changed it to something simple like 1+2= and since then, not a single spammer!



Very true. The default answer seems to be open knowledge in ‘bot land’

Nice find Zack, definately worth trying if it hasn't already been done.

Zack
“Who ya gonna call?”

That's what Net used on GBHQ

Authorization Code: *
Who ya gonna call? (Proper response is ghostbusters in all lower case), sorry folks, keeps the riff-raff out.

It's worked over there, I see no reason it wouldn't work here.

a multi word code would work too…most spam bots work on a simple number/dictionary basis, they'll try a combination of numbers and words. (at least i think that's how they work…hollywood has ruined my perception of the ‘hacker’)

but who ya gonna call would work, as long as the spambots aren't clever and use the site as a code attempt. (i saw a spam post the other day that asked the admin of ghostbusters.net to move the topic to a relevant forum from “Fan Projects” which leads me to believe that it may have been able to detect what forum it was putting it to. but i'm probably giving this too much thought!)

Done. The question is now “Who Ya Gonna Call?” and the answer is “Ghostbusters”. Let's hope this helps cut the spam.

Well seems to have done the trick overnight. Only one new user which I think is legitimate. :-) Here's hoping! Let's see what today brings.

Good choice of a question

Conglaturation! You have picked the right question. You have prooved the justice of our message board. No go and rest our heroes!

I think we found the winning question. Glad to know it!