reCAPTCHA Cracked.

[fattony69]

This makes a lot of sense based on everyone having to deal with this. All forums have been getting hit.

http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/New-Google-CAPTCHAs-now-cracked-892621.html
http://www.allspammedup.com/2010/01/google-recaptcha-cracked/

 

[AnthonyCea]

Google Captchas were cracked years ago, they have been working on new technology for years now.

See this post and the link within:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/fake-spam-accounts-driving-us-insane.10154/page-2#post-138618

 

[Carlos]

Google Captchas were cracked years ago, they have been working on new technology for years now.

Ahem; www.recaptcha.com

 

[AnthonyCea]

Google reCAPTCHA cracked

Written by John P Mello Jr on January 5, 2010

http://groups.google.com/group/recaptcha/browse_thread/thread/9de60ecda3dc7687

It certainly appears ReCaptcha is beaten. Bots mainly register on forums to
get a home page link in the profile, they are not posting but I have either
deleted or banned them. They like to use gmail also for their email address.

 

[FreshFroot]

I haven't gotten hit at all. That's because I used the questions option. That seems to work the best when the questions is a bit tough.

I've seen bots crack "1+1 is" But using a tough question seems to be working for me.

 

[AnthonyCea]

Custom human questions are great, we need that module on all registration forms now days.

 

[Fred Sherman]

Agreed. Ideally, it should be something that your target audience can answer easily, but that someone not interested in your forums would not.
"What root level command configures devices and optionally installs device software into the system utilizing the Configuration Rules object class?"
Anyone using my site would answer that without thinking about it. You can even Google it and get the answer easily. But a bot? Stopped cold.

 

[ArnyVee]

Custom questions and other custom profile fields make it that much more difficult for robot (and even human spammers) to get through.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Custom human questions are great, we need that module on all registration forms now days.

This is a great idea. Should be a Core xenforo feature.

 

[AnthonyCea]

Fred, I tried to join Amiga.org and their question required knowledge of their history or OS and I have neither, so I gave up trying to answer their question and did not join the forum, so a vertical question that requires specific expertise or technical know how should be reserved for forums that want to qualify members so they fit in, this will keep out newbies and is not advised for most forums.

 

[Jaxel]

On vB, there was a script where it would search a directory of images, and each image had a name. Then it would list 5 images and it would ask you "which one of these images is <imagename>?". I think that would be the best method.

 

[Shelley]

On vB, there was a script where it would search a directory of images, and each image had a name. Then it would list 5 images and it would ask you "which one of these images is <imagename>?". I think that would be the best method.

I used that mod quite a bit and found it very useful to fight off spam while using the Q&A mod also.

 

[AnthonyCea]

If you read Matt Cutts blog you will find that your forums will NOT RANK IN GOOGLE IF YOU ALLOW LINK SPAMMING IN THREADS OR WITHIN USER PROFILES.

Read my posts before the above posts to see how spammers are targeting your forums in a BIG WAY !!

 

[fattony69]

On vB, there was a script where it would search a directory of images, and each image had a name. Then it would list 5 images and it would ask you "which one of these images is <imagename>?". I think that would be the best method.

That was an amazing mod until it broke.

 

[kkm323]

you can ask for other easier question such as
what is the name of our site?
What is the third word in this sentence? A. the

but, xenfore doesn't provide this option. I wish they did

 

[Andy.N]

We ask some random questions like this
(-26) minus ___ equals -4
And you have to enter into the blank the correct number.

Easy?

 

[MGSteve]

We ask some random questions like this
(-26) minus ___ equals -4
And you have to enter into the blank the correct number.

Easy?

Erm, if you run a forum for maths heads yes! Negative numbers confuse a lot of people. But I agree, a customisable question (preferably a choice of customisable questions) would be ideal.

After 8 years, we've had to start moderating new accounts now, which is hardly ideal

 

[CTXMedia]

When using maths questions, add more numbers to the question to deepen the possible answers as some bots can work out simple questions:

Q. If you have four apples and eat one, how many are left?

This has two numbers, 4 and 1.

4+1
4-1
4*1
4/1

It's easy to work out the possible answer from so few numbers. This one is much harder to guess at:

Q. Fifteen people are invited to a party. Four of them leave early. Two of the guests have red wine, whilst five of them have White. The remaining four have seven Tequila slammers and 8 vodka shots between them. How many people were invited to the party?

Missing words questions are good too, especially if you make it relate to your board theme - as missing words require comprehension, which of course, the "bots" don't do very well.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Kier]

If you read Matt Cutts blog you will find that your forums will NOT RANK IN GOOGLE IF YOU ALLOW LINK SPAMMING IN THREADS OR WITHIN USER PROFILES.

No user-posted links in XenForo pass PageRank, and none can be described as reciprocal links, so you'd have a very hard job to describe any as linkspam as defined by Google. Matt Cutts blog does not say what you claim it does. Come back when you have found an article that is relevant to the matter at hand.

 

[AnthonyCea]

If you decide to start again, I’d definitely pay attention not only to the quality of your outlinks (if you link to spammy/low-quality sites, that can look spammy to us) as well as putting more work into original content.

You must have missed his comment quoted above Kier.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/calling-for-link-spam-reports/#comment-485959

and

Starting this month, we will notify more webmasters of more potential issues we’ve detected on their websites, including:
- Spammy or abused user-generated content
- Abused forum pages or egregious amounts of comment spam
- Suspected hacking
These notifications are meant to alert webmasters of potential issues and provide next steps on how to get their sites fixed and back into Google’s search results.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/calling-for-link-spam-reports/#comment-486304