Profiles in forums and spiders?

[Mendicant]

I have searched the tutorials to no avail. Is there a way to stop what a forensic computer friend of mine called spiders (bots chasing websites and registering fictious names to put adult content websites in user profiles, sigs, and anywhere else it can find) from accessing my website?

Almost everyday I have to go in and ban the information from my forums. What gets me is that it posts their icq and I can track them from there as well. Could these be stolen identities and should I notify these people that their infomation was posted in our forums profile?

You should have been here -
Being curious about who registered on our website, I clicked on the very 1st one and boy was that was misleading. My 15 year old was talking to me when bam - my screen loaded up with adult content and just kept spamming me until it finally ended. It was humorous at first, but now a pain. It was ********** that immediately went to adult content on my computer.

Anyway to disable that feature in user profiles for forums? That would fix the problem for sure. Hope I posted this in the correct forum topic.

[Karen Mac]

Re: Adult Websites in user profiles in forums - Spiders?

Mend

Try this thread. I believe there are some modules there you can add to your forum for this very reason.

http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/start-your-own-community-forum/15219-liven-up-your-phpbb-forum.html

Karen

[Watdaflip]

Re: Adult Websites in user profiles in forums - Spiders?

And there isn't a way to stop them from coming to your website. They arn't like search engines, they will completly ignore the robot.txt. You best bet is to install a mod that has a more advanced for of human detections then a simple captcha. Also you might be able to find a mod that checks the web address that people are using for their homepage, if it has like xxx, or sex in it, then it won't let it be posted.

[Aliens Anonymous]

Re: Adult Websites in user profiles in forums - Spiders?

At least on your forum set the registration to user or admin, as these idiots always use bogus email address they will never get the mail to activate the account, but they will still show in the members list , installing mods like the humanizer, remove www. or even better the Anti bot question will help or even stop spam bots registering.

[Mendicant]

Re: Profiles in forums and spiders?

Thanks team players - still working on it. I am using cpanel tools to get a range of ips to block as well. Most of them I have tracked to with their icq's to see who they really are. These things are like clockwork. They just keep coming and coming. I (because I am a noob) spend 30-60 minutes a day just poking around to find them. So far it is a game.

I will look into what you all are saying as some of it is still a foreign language to me. Any more ideas, I will appreciate it.

[Mendicant]

Re: Profiles in forums and spiders?

By the way, nice avatars folks. I have to work on one for me when I get time.

[warwickplates]

Re: Profiles in forums and spiders?

Hi Mendicant, I dont have any answers because I am getting the same problem, everyday my forum gets filled up with some of the most unsavoury stuff. I dont bother tracking them down I just delete them off, but no sooner than I done that then another lot appears. My concern is that when the forum takes off I am not going to be able to control it all. Any simple ideas anyone

https://www.warfarin-tablets.co.uk