Banning by IP is pretty useless as they could simply spin up a VPN or proxy server and get a new IP. There are even services that will let you choose which country you appear to be from.You might have better luck with a shotgun approach. Ban the email address *vvb@gmail.com and all wildcards like it.
Next, if they're registering, the forum is recording their IP. Ban their IP networks, in such a way as they don't interfere with your regular members IPs or your Web host.
Not really needed as phpBB includes this feature as default.Add the extension Contact Admin
You'd be surprised how easily bots would be able to figure those combinations.Set set captcha Q&A questions that are easy enough for you to create and typical prospective members to get past, but difficult for intruders not familiar with obvious Q&A answers. Don't just say name the ocean west of Europe, have some fun with it, if the answer is say, Atlantic play tricks, have them type just the consonants or have them type the word backwards. Things like that. You'd be surprised by how quickly you can weed trolls out that way.
KevC's post is spot on for effective spam prevention. For human spammers, I'm actively investigating how easy it would be to convert the Troll MOD to an extension as I was able to obtain a backup of the code.
Statistics: Posted by Kailey — Fri Jan 05, 2024 11:08 pm