Ran a little forum registration test today

[Bullseye]

I unblocked some of the more common free email ISP's to see how much SPAM traffic I picked up. In a twelve hour period I had 38 spambot registration attempts and one I deemed legitimate. It would have been even higher but I cut gmail back off after only three hours and fifteen bogus registration attempts. Normally in the same time period I would have only five to eight attempts. Email providers like hotmail, aol, gmail have all been banned because of these spammers and the amount of work they place on my admin time. In the mean time I'm re-banning these providers as I'm not going to spend that much time sorting through all the internet chaff each day. Of course if anyone really needs to use one of these free providers, I can manually enter you into the system. All it takes is an email request to me for registration.

R,
Bullseye

[bearandoldman]

You are doing a great job my friend. These spammers are just like those automated phone calls you get with credit card interest savings. Worse part is that there is no one to tell what you think of them.

[Bullseye]

The unfortunate part is that some folks who wish to register are getting messages that say they've been "banned" when submitting the registration request. It is not "them" specifically that was banned but their email providers, all because of these spammers. I get a few emails each month inquiring as to "Why am I banned?", and it makes me wonder sometimes if there aren't more folks out there who get frustrated and give up on registering because their email address won't go through.

R,
Bullseye

[blue68f100]

Bullseye your doing great job on keeping spammers out. The other forum that I'm a moderator on has implemented a 7 day waiting period. Which has virtually killed all of the spammers. Haven't had one in over 30 days now. It's seams that they keep the email address 7 days or less.

[Bullseye]

I wish that were true for me. I'm running old, free, bbs software and the spambots like my http address and captcha registration scheme. I get some spam with the same return addresses but I've taken to banning those too. Many times they come up with bogus email addresses made up of random letters and numbers. The ones I'm really concerned with are the advertising sites and the potentially harmful ones. I dump those as quickly as I can. My bride says if I update the forum software I can avoid some of this but I'm a little fearful of the possible outcomes to the database if I do. Right now everything runs well and folks are used to the way the forum works. Upgrading would change a lot of things, including the look of the board. I'm not sure that I want to do that. These are not minor updates to the forum's software, I'd be going upward a few generations. GunTalk-Online has been around for six years now and there have been some changes to the way the phbb-bbs forum software runs, some are better changes and some are not. Right now the only real pain is the spammers and I've lived with that for a long time.

R,
Bullseye

[ruger22]

We appreciate the forum just the way it is. It's a shame that in every area of life, there are crooks, and malcontents just out to ruin someone's day.

[Coach1]

My SIL uses one of those troublesome email services. He got the "banned" response and followed with an email to Bullseye / Admin. We understands the need for screening.. and the less-than-stellar reputation that some of these services have. John got his access established quickly following his email.

I like the way the forum looks and works. Keep up the good work.