This forum doesn't allow the modification of posts after 5 days even when information needs to be corrected or updated. As such, there will be misinformation throughout this forum, at least certainly in some of my posts, so take things with a grain of salt.
Common sense solution: Always be mindful of newer posts in case older ones contain errors.
Possible important update to ggn's anti-spam hack (
verified for YaBB 2.4):
It came to my attention
in this post that a possible error can be made with ggn's anti-spam hack if you aren't careful about typing text
exactly as it should be typed. This should include spaces and characters in the coding that you see in the instructions below.
As such, please make note of the following instructions to implement this very effective anti-spam hack to stop spam-bots from registering in your forum.
Human bots, or "Hu-bots" can be effectively stopped by selecting Pre-registration with admin membership approval.
This anti-spam hack is a 2-step process that involves 5 files:
First file to edit: cgi-bin/yabb2/Sources/
Decoder.plFind the line (
near the end of the file) that reads:
&captcha($captcha);
Change the line above as follows to:
&captcha("XX".$captcha."XX");
Note: You'll want to let people know that they have to omit those 4 letters (
XX and
XX), or
any letters you choose, so the following 4 files should also be edited as instructed below in the code boxes:
cgi-bin/yabb2/Languages/English/
LogInOut.lngcgi-bin/yabb2/Languages/English/
Post.lngcgi-bin/yabb2/Languages/English/
Register.lngcgi-bin/yabb2/Languages/English/
SendTopic.lng-
The following change should be made in each of the 4 files above -
In the line that reads:
'casewarning' => 'Please type exactly what text appears in the image.<br />The characters must be typed in the same order,<br />and they are case-sensitive.',
Change to:
'casewarning' => 'Please type exactly what text appears in the image,<br /><strong>without the first two and last two characters.</strong><br />The characters must be typed in the same order,<br />and they are case-sensitive.',
To the left of your auto-generated
Verification Code,
this edit will produce the following result:
Your Verification Code is:Please type exactly what text appears in the image,
without the first two and last two characters.
The characters must be typed in the same order,
and they are case-sensitive.
As always, it's recommended that you keep a copy of the original files you are changing in case a problem comes up, and you need to upload any one of them again.
Remember to
upload all of these files
in ASCII;
not binary.
Another recommendation is to sign up for a test registration to see what the public sees. You can obviously delete that test membership after you've confirmed that everything is working properly.
Verification note (
YaBB 2.4): As of a week or so ago in the forum that I operate, this anti-spam hack has stopped over 300,000 attempted registrations by spam-bots.
Not one single spam-bot has been able to register!
Recommendation: Even though I can personally confirm that this anti-spam hack works as advertised,
thanks to ggn authoring it, and I recommend it, it's probably better to install an anti-spam mod that's been written for YaBB if you know how to install mods.
I don't know how to install mods, which is why I implemented ggn's anti-spam hack.
Unfortunately, spammers will most likely come up with a new way to spam our forums. Meanwhile, we have this anti-spam tool, and others to stop spammers cold.
Good luck.