Programmers: Is this doable? (website spam prevention)

[KimJI]

Programmers: Is this doable? (website spam prevention)

I was thinking about ways to prevent spam in blogs and forums and ended up with two rough ideas.

1 - Just like the Counters where you place a script-code on the page. That code records your IP and logs it to a database. I was thinking. Could that code load a script that checked what IP the user was coming from, and if it was from a blacklisted IP, he could be redirected before he could get the chance of spamming your blog?

Did that make sense?


2 - When you hit "submit" on a form, it sends the data to a script. Is it possible to send data to a filterscript, that checks the content of the data submitted, and then resend it to the real script?

Like this:

.. Blogger write a comment with some domain in the message
.. Blogger hits submit
.. Data gets send to the filterscript like www.filterscript.com/filter.php?userid=yourname&distinationscript=http://www.theoriginaldestination.com/data.php
.. the filterscript checks for values according to your settings
.. if the IP, email or text contains a spam message, it ends up in a quarantined
.. if the data is clean, it gets resend to the original destination.

Get the idea? Like a the email RBL work

That way there could be a global spamlist that could be used for forums, blogs, linklists ect.

[Nails]

yes, that can be done very easily

if you put the blacklisted ips in a table or file. You could just
check there before letting the post be inserted.

[mortenb]

As Nails said, those things are very easy to implement. The problem is that a lot of comment spam comes from proxy IP's and change all the time.

[KimJI]

yes, that can be done very easily

if you put the blacklisted ips in a table or file. You could just
check there before letting the post be inserted.

So you would say both could be done? NR 1 would be my first choise, but I think there will be a lot of work to get it to work.

Maybe it could just check the IP, and then make a Flash Overlay of the hole site site, so the user could still see the site, but there would be a transparent overlay with the words "you have been banned" or something.

[KimJI]

As Nails said, those things are very easy to implement. The problem is that a lot of comment spam comes from proxy IP's and change all the time.

yeah, that is also one of my conserns. But if its based on the RBL setup like email, it should only be a matter of hours before the given proxy is banned and cant be used before its dropped from the list again.

[mortenb]

So you would say both could be done? NR 1 would be my first choise, but I think there will be a lot of work to get it to work.

Maybe it could just check the IP, and then make a Flash Overlay of the hole site site, so the user could still see the site, but there would be a transparent overlay with the words "you have been banned" or something.

Take a look at AJAX if you want the script to check for banned IP's after the submit button has been clicked, but before the page actually submits the data.

[KimJI]

Its just that so many hours are wasted each day for webmasters having to go through the sites and remove spam. 2 years ago I could just start a forum, and look at it once in a while. Today I have to spend time keeping it clean every day.

I know there is a solution to it, and its staring us in the face - we just have to spot it.

[KimJI]

Take a look at AJAX if you want the script to check for banned IP's after the submit button has been clicked, but before the page actually submits the data.

Got a few ICQs the last minutes with the same message

I know very little about programming, but now I know what AJAX is (the basics)


More and more sites will add smaller or bigger "community" segments to their network. Therefore that kind of spam will be a bigger problem in the future. So whoever finds the solution to it now will be a few steps ahead. At least fro a little while

[mortenb]

You could take a look at Akismet

[Vick!]

I am sure there is some script like this is already out, I can't recall the name though :/

[KimJI]

You could take a look at Akismet

That is what I use on the blogs today. The difference is my idea is website independant. It would work on Forums, blogs or any other comment/contact field out there.

Maybe I should talk to those people to see if they would make a cms/platform independant service

[brand0n]

why not a captcha?

[mortenb]

It says on their FAQ page (http://akismet.com/faq/ about half way down) that Akismet can be adapted for use with pretty much anything.

There is even a pre-written PHP class to make it easy to implement.

[KimJI]

It says on their FAQ page (http://akismet.com/faq/ about half way down) that Akismet can be adapted for use with pretty much anything.

There is even a pre-written PHP class to make it easy to implement.

Now I feel like a idiot for the mail I just send them

[OzMan]

why not a captcha?

captchas are the only effective solution

Using proxies, infinite varieties of text and images and the fact that it takes community action to report abuse so that in a small community, that may not happen for days or ever means that your two suggestions won't work that great.

[KimJI]

captchas are the only effective solution

Using proxies, infinite varieties of text and images and the fact that it takes community action to report abuse so that in a small community, that may not happen for days or ever means that your two suggestions won't work that great.

The RBL would not be based on a single site, but every site using the service. Just like any other Email RBL.

Guess I have to read about captchas now.

If you have more pointers, please say so

EDIT:

Ok - CAPTCHAs are not what im looking for. Bots can crack those. I want to prevent them even loading the site

[KimJI]

I want to get rid of as much of the infinite varieties of text and images as possible. Because it keeps the surfer from interacting with the community - or that is what I think. Other may have different points of view

[tical]

captchas for sure