Gmail email Accounts out of control!!!

[Mike Nealon]

I'm not sure if others are having the same issue but I am getting an obnoxious amount of new registration of spammers who are using gmail accounts. It is so bad at this point I'm considering shutting down the message board. My database keeps shutting down because of too many connections error.

My question is can we accept/reject new registrants before they register. I know about the other options available, but I want to avoid these spammers from even registering on my message board. This is out of control!!

Mike N

[1996 328ti]

You can ban gmail accounts but I can't see why that is shutting down your connection.

You can approve each new registration.
How do you know it is a member interested in your forum and not a spammer?

I'm down to one or two spammers a week with a wide range of email addresses. And their posts are hardly ever visible.

[Mike Nealon]

the reason why I know is because not one of this "new" registrants have posted. I'm assuming the spambots look for a specific keyword in a thread to try and spam to, however my board does not have it. For some reason they cannot post, but they are able to spam me to death with new registration. I often get between 30-70 emails from the database about "too many connections error"

[Mike Nealon]

how do you approve new registration?

[Steve Machol]

You do that here:

Admin CP -> Moderation -> Moderate Users

[Mike Nealon]

thank you Steve, I've tried your suggestion, the only thing I get is a message saying "no matches found".

I want to moderate new registrants before they register, not after they register. Is this possible?

[Steve Machol]

You cannot moderate members before they register. Not even sure how that would be possible.

[Mike Nealon]

okay, that is what I'm looking for. I'm getting bomb with new registration spams that aren't able to post a thread. This for some reason is causing my "too many connections" error which shuts down the message board. I have seen other message boards that require administrative approval before you can be allowed to join.

[DelphiVillage]

Moderate New Members
Allows you to validate new members before they are classified as registered members and are allowed to post.


admincp => vBulletin Options => User Registeration Options => Moderate New Members

but i seriously doubt this will stop the database errors

[jeffinj]

You do that here:

Admin CP -> Moderation -> Moderate Users


For more than 4 months, the moderators (around 4-5 of them on a constant basis) at my forum has been reviewing each new registration and so far it is working well.

You need some data to verify to moderate. I don't think that's possible if you chose to moderate before someone registers. You can always delete a new registration and send an email re deletion of the account or put new members into a temporary usergroup where they can only change their profile details and when you know they are genuine, move them into an active usergroup.

I don't know about the connection error you have.

[ipscone]

I'm not sure if others are having the same issue but I am getting an obnoxious amount of new registration of spammers who are using gmail accounts. It is so bad at this point I'm considering shutting down the message board. My database keeps shutting down because of too many connections error.

My question is can we accept/reject new registrants before they register. I know about the other options available, but I want to avoid these spammers from even registering on my message board. This is out of control!!

Mike Nand

You cannot moderate members before they register. Not even sure how that would be possible. Not quite true. You can automatically moderate behavior.

I have a real simple solution. Banning gmail accounts restricts legitimate users. What I did was to make two fields mandatory (Interests) and one I created called "Intended_Usage". These are field 3 and 5 in my database. In 100% of the cases of automated spammers, any mandatory field is just the username or part of it, that is duplicated in both fields. They are always the same.

This code looks for duplicate and automatically generated inputs and when finds it, appears to complete the registration but bails before creating any database entry or sending any emails. The spammer software thinks it has successfully registered.

The good thing about this code, is that it looks like the registration was completed. No emails are sent and no database additions are added and I get no emails. My moderation queue is now empty of spammers. I have had ZERO spammers register, since putting this in.

I have gone from dozens of spammers daily to ZERO

I added it to the register.php file in the "addmember" area, right after the coppa section.
// My Test Code
// Tests "Interests" (field3) and "Intended_Use" (field5) for duplicate info or match to "Interests"
// If found, then deemed spammer and appears to complete registration but no registration actually took place
if ($vbulletin->GPC['userfield']['field3'] == $vbulletin->GPC['userfield']['field5'])
{
eval(standard_error(fetch_error('registeremail', $username, $email, $vbulletin->url . $vbulletin->session->vars['sessionurl_q']), '', false));
}
// End My anti-spammer Code

I'm still moderating this, until I know it's working well but the only registration attempts I see are ones who actually, really read the intro. ZERO automated gmail spammers have gotten passed this simple fix. Of course, I realize it's only temporary and eventually someone might start getting more creative with their auto-registrations but this method is easily adapted by requiring specific words included in those fields. Legitimate users are more likely to read the terms than spammers.

[Steve Machol]

Moderating people before they register is not possible. Filtering is. There's a difference. ;)

[Floris]

Please review this thread for details about the recent spam floods:
Sticky: Forum Robot Spam Prevention Recommendations (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=288234)

[ipscone]

Moderating people before they register is not possible. Filtering is. There's a difference. ;)Yes there is a difference but I suppose one might call that semantics.

However, I still call it moderating. Moderating is when you look at the "inputs" given, and decide if you will allow someone to post. That is what I'm doing. I'm "looking" at their input and "moderating" before I make a database entry.

A filter would be if one "banned all gmail" for instance. Or banning all of a certain IP.

What I'm moderating is whether or not someone read the description and can follow instructions. There is nothing in the definition of "moderation" that requires any database entry to be made or that a human do the moderating. Moderation is "entirely" about looking at the information provided and deciding if a member can post.

Feel free to call it a filter if you like. ;) It takes only 2 lines of code.

In any case, it works. I used to get upwards of a hundred (sometimes more) per day. I'm now getting ZERO.

[Floris]

Yes there is a difference but I suppose one might call that semantics.

However, I still call it moderating. Moderating is when you look at the "inputs" given, and decide if you will allow someone to post. That is what I'm doing. I'm "looking" at their input and "moderating" before I make a database entry.

A filter would be if one "banned all gmail" for instance. Or banning all of a certain IP.

What I'm moderating is whether or not someone read the description and can follow instructions. There is nothing in the definition of "moderation" that requires any database entry to be made or that a human do the moderating. Moderation is "entirely" about looking at the information provided and deciding if a member can post.

In any case, it works. I used to get upwards of a hundred (sometimes more) per day. I'm now getting ZERO.
Thank you for your feedback and input on this situation.