How can I stop PHPBB spam accounts?

I get several spam accounts per day trying to sign up to my Framework forums. Already I have changed the settings so I have to manually authorise the sign up and it's a pain trying to sort out the real sign ups from the spam ones.

New users still have to enter a disguised number when signing up, is a human spammer doing that or are bots able to get round it? Any advice at stopping this would be very helpful.

I could just change the URL from forum and notify all my customers but that will only keep spammers away for a short while...

Thanks in advance for any help.

Bots can easily get past the most popular captcha systems these days, so it's a good chance it is a spam bot trying to sign up.

One thing I've done on my forums is to add to the registration page a random question which has to be answered correctly, for example "The opposite of night is?", "Twelve + 3 =?".

That way sign up bots will face a none standard sign up method. I still get the odd human spammer signing up but it's cut down spam attempts dramatically.

What a good idea :o)

Qube sounds good, but that would involve modifying the phpBB code in some way. Suppose I need an expert programmer for that (as there's no way I can figure that out). I'd be willing to pay for that though as it's really peeing me off.

@Grey

I can help modifying php code if you need, I've experience on that especially for generic(non-syetem specific) php anti-bot solution.

I can do that for free, the solution is very easy but effective, I'll make a example asap.

Just tell me what version of phpBB you use.

One admin I had for a web forum added in hidden dummy textfields in the registration process, seemed to work for him as the bots he had filled every form with info, including the dummies, as to which it made it a joke to figure out who's legit and who's a bot.

We use this mod:
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=383305

It works quite well. Sometimes a few bots/idiots make it through, but the rate is very low.

People really are morons... If you take a step back and look, it's stupid kids writing bots to sign up and create spam accounts for the purpose of... erm? what exactly? I mean, how many people actually click on spam links. You can tell them apart from human input from a mile...

You have to keep phpBB updated all the time too.

Since the cost of running the spam bot is next to nothing, so even if only one in a million messages leads to a sale the spammer still makes a profit.

Also, a good portion of spammers profits tends to come from reselling their services to others. They charge someone else to post their crap a million times, regardless of the number of actual sales get generated.

As boomboom says - make sure you have the latest phpBB update. I haven't had a single false registration since updating. Mind you, I lost my existing database in the process. Oops!

Yoko: I'm using PHPbb 2.0.21. Sounds great if you can help me do it!

fredborg: OK checking out, thanks!

boomboom/DavidDC: How easy is it to update? I'm not very good with this kind of thing, someone else set the forum up for me. I just use the cpanel thing attached to the domain.

fredborg: OK checked out the mod but the installation procedure may be above my skill level!

If you do not have a customised designed, and are using only default templates etc, then its pretty easy (you upload an installer package and run it on your site). Just make sure you do a database and directory update before you do.

That mod didn't seem to have an installer package, just some instructions which were very long. Did you mean database and directory "backup" or "update"? Or maybe both...

I'll look into it if you still want have a try, I'm going top download a package and test on my system now.

Grey, I sent a mail to you (the profile one), it's an easy and not-so-intrusive way, if yopu can't get it work, I can help out.

YAY! Thanks yoko big time, that was really easy to apply and works great, I *really* appreciate your help.

I've used askimet for my blog, it's been great in stopping spams. It's caught 30k spam comments so far and have let maybe 10 or so through in the last year i've had it installed. Anyway, someone is bringing askimet to phpbb, may be worth a look.

http://blog.akismet.com/2006/06/12/phpbb/

OK sounds interesting thanks. I use Askimet for my blog too and it's good (only a couple get through). Yoko's solution works fine for me at the moment though...

On a texture site I advertise on, what they've done is on a page before the forum they just write something like "The password is: BLAH" and that stops the spammers, cause they're just using automated systems to do their spamming; it wouldn't be worth it for them to spam manually.

haha OK, so something as simple as that outfoxes a bot. I was thinking that in the future if AI actually gets any good bots will be able to figure out all sorts of entry systems...

You mean like in the year 20x6?

cool thx.