There is this forum I am a member of. Its just starting to get off the ground and there is this guy who is spamming. He has posted that the owner will not be able to stop him, he will use a proxy, he will change his IP address, blah, blah and more blah. The spammer seems to be mad at the owner of the site for some reason. I get the feeling that the guy who is running the forum is doing the best that he can, but he needs some advice. My sites run VBulletin and SMF, so my knowledge of MYBB is limited. Is there an easy ban and clean up modification for MYBB? In VBulletin there is a one touch spam ban and clean up modification. With two clicks the script deletes all of the spammers post, bans the spammer and adds the spammers IP to the ban list. Even if the spammer has posted 100 threads and post, in a matter of seconds all of them will be deleted by this script. With that in mind, is there a modification like that for MYBB? Does MYBB have a way to bulk delete threads and post made by a problem member? With VBulletin there is a modification to block proxies. The script checks to see if javascript is enabled. If java is not enabled the script sends the bot or proxy to another site like google. This can prevent around 99% of proxies from being able to access your site. Is there anything like that for MYBB? Or is there anything that can be installed on a MYBB site to block proxies? I am not trying to compare VB and MYBB. These modifications exist in VB, I know because I use them. Does anyone know of any modifications for MYBB that can help deal with human spammers? Any advice would be helpful, thank you.
Well there's several types of proxies, there is one mod. that can only be accessed via a paid subscription at MyBBCentral.com that's supposed to detect such fraudulent sign ups but I don't think it can detect other proxy methods. A long time ago I had some problems with some idiots using this specific program to generate a new IP each time and it was not your standard proxy so it was hard to perm. ban as they could easily change their IP. Luckily they eventually gave up and left the forum alone. I suspect it's quite easy for this guy to keep making fake accounts so for now I recommend that this forum admin changes registration to require e-mail activation. This will make it harder for the spammer to accomplish their goal as they'll have to keep creating fake e-mails and activate their account. Alternatively when they try to spam again, their current "fake" IP could be forwarded to a not so nice site, that might help them get the message to back off.
At Mybb Central I have this: http://www.mybbcentral.com/showthread.php?tid=1727 And this: http://www.mybbcentral.com/showthread.php?tid=1658
I've had this problem a few times, and it's a pain.. i dont use MYBB (i use Drupal), but basically this is what i do: Block known proxies & server farm IP ranges at the firewall (i have a list of over 1,000,000) Use a script called bad-behavior (blocks some, not all, that make it through the firewall) block individual IP's at the forum level with a IP-blocker plugin require email validation before members can post (make him work a bit harder) Even with all that, someone with enough time, and no life could still get in - so the best thing to do is just ignore them, clean up behind him, and dont reply/respond - almost always they get bored and go away.