Merged How to protect my forum from spam

proterra: I think you have a different problem ( Spamschutz: Captcha zu schwach ). Please use your own topic or create a new topic, in English, in Kunena Discuss (P) . Make sure you are using the latest version of Kunena and Kunena Discuss plugin and post your configuration report. I think we can help you better if you do that.

I noticed one thing that very annoying: my forum (built with kunena on J1.5) receives too many spam posts everyday.

The Joomla core I am using is the latest v1.5.25, and so is the Kunena component, v1.7.1. I also think my server is very strong. What is more, I had already installed a plugin to prevent SQL injections.

So, why Kunena still gets so many spam posts?

I remember that 2 years ago when I was using SMF forum, it seldom get any spam post.

Can I say that the reason is Kunena itself is very vulnerable for spam robots?

Hope you will make Kunena stronger.

Thanks.

baijianpeng wrote: Can I say that the reason is Kunena itself is very vulnerable for spam robots?

You can say it. We don't have to agree with that assertion.

WeedRoy wrote: but i know one site who dont use captcha, and dont have spam bots...
hmmmm :S

Sorry to say this, but that is the silliest comment made on this thread. :whistle:

its like saying "I know an intersection that has no traffic lights and never had a car accident". Therefore traffic lights do not make intersections safer. :laugh:

Site owners need to understand spam and what its all about. If you have excessive spam on a site, it probably means that the spammers see your site as worth the effort, either because it has high Google rankings, or it is an easy target. The cost to control spam gets higher as your site gets more popular.

I was getting a lot of spam on my site, but after the latest upgrade, and setting mandatory captcha on the first 5 posts, I now get about 2 spam hits a week (from about 50-60 per day), though I still have about 50 new users a day that are clear spammers, most clearly don't see the value in paying for cracking 5 more captchas so give up.

The important thing to realize is that there is no "Magic Silver Bullet" that kills all spam, you need to look at all the options and figure out the balance that works best for you.

Now that I have spam under control I can spend more time troll hunting, which is much harder.

Hi,

We get innundated with 20+ spam messages per day. It's turned our users off the forum which is now dying slowly depsite 60k members.

All I would need to do to stop this is ban users from placing any weblinks in their posts. Surely this is a very simple way of reducing spam and should be an easy option included as standard in Kunena?

Can you advise if this is possible? If not has anyone done this or tried to do it? The spam we get ranges from carpets to porn and Russia to China. Our registration process has been firmed up and we have recaptcha at that level but this still happens.

Please advise.

I found many post about spam but not one real solution.
It would be a big help to block guest posts with links, url's, href
So when a guest writes a post and in it is a link, url ...
then don't allow the post.

Is this a lot of code? where to put this hack?

Thanks in advance.

I want to add CAPTCHA to the registration to prevent spammers from getting to the forum. I'm a little confused because Kunena also uses parts of Joomla (users). So... can I add captcha to Joomla registration by finding a plugin or something that replaces com_users? Or is that a bad thing and will Kunena not work after that? So where should I add CAPTCHA to solve my problem?

Database collation check: The collation of your table fields are correct

Legacy mode: Disabled | Joomla! SEF: Disabled | Joomla! SEF rewrite: Disabled | FTP layer: Disabled |

This message contains confidential information

htaccess: Exists | PHP environment: Max execution time: 120 seconds | Max execution memory: 128M | Max file upload: 32M

Joomla default template details : yoo_pure | author: YOOtheme | version: 5.5.11 | creationdate: September 2011

Kunena default template details : Aphotic | author: snilloconator | version: 1.6.0 | creationdate: 2010-23-09

Kunena version detailled: Installed version: 1.7.1 | Build: 5162 | Version name: UnderUret | Kunena detailled configuration:

Warning: Spoiler!

[th]Kunena config settings:[/th]

board_offline	0
board_ofset	0.00
enablerss	1
enablepdf	1
threads_per_page	20
messages_per_page	10
messages_per_page_search	15
showhistory	1
historylimit	6
shownew	1
jmambot	0
disemoticons	0
template	Aphotic
showannouncement	1
avataroncat	0
catimagepath	category_images/
showchildcaticon	1
annmodid	78
rtewidth	500
rteheight	300
enableforumjump	1
reportmsg	1
username	1
askemail	0
showemail	0
showuserstats	1
showkarma	1
useredit	1
useredittime	0
useredittimegrace	600
editmarkup	1
allowsubscriptions	1
subscriptionschecked	0
allowfavorites	1
maxsubject	50
maxsig	300
regonly	0
changename	0
pubwrite	0
floodprotection	10
mailmod	0
mailadmin	0
captcha	0
mailfull	1
allowavatar	1
allowavatarupload	1
allowavatargallery	1
avatarquality	65
avatarsize	2048
allowimageupload	0
allowimageregupload	1
imageheight	800
imagewidth	800
imagesize	150
allowfileupload	0
allowfileregupload	1
filetypes	txt,rtf,pdf,zip,tar.gz,tgz,tar.bz2
filesize	120
showranking	1
rankimages	1
avatar_src	fb
fb_profile	fb
pm_component	no
userlist_rows	30
userlist_online	1
userlist_avatar	1
userlist_name	1
userlist_username	1
userlist_posts	1
userlist_karma	1
userlist_email	0
userlist_usertype	0
userlist_joindate	1
userlist_lastvisitdate	1
userlist_userhits	1
latestcategory
showstats	1
showwhoisonline	1
showgenstats	1
showpopuserstats	1
popusercount	10
showpopsubjectstats	1
popsubjectcount	10
usernamechange	0
rules_infb	1
rules_cid	1
help_infb	1
help_cid	1
showspoilertag	1
showvideotag	1
showebaytag	1
trimlongurls	1
trimlongurlsfront	40
trimlongurlsback	20
autoembedyoutube	1
autoembedebay	1
ebaylanguagecode	en-us
fbsessiontimeout	1800
highlightcode	0
rss_type	topic
rss_timelimit	month
rss_limit	100
rss_included_categories
rss_excluded_categories
rss_specification	rss2.0
rss_allow_html	1
rss_author_format	name
rss_author_in_title	1
rss_word_count	0
rss_old_titles	1
rss_cache	900
fbdefaultpage	recent
default_sort	asc
alphauserpointsnumchars	0
sef	0
sefcats	0
sefutf8	0
showimgforguest	1
showfileforguest	1
pollnboptions	6
pollallowvoteone	1
pollenabled	1
poppollscount	5
showpoppollstats	1
polltimebtvotes	00:15:00
pollnbvotesbyuser	100
pollresultsuserslist	1
maxpersotext	50
ordering_system	mesid
post_dateformat	datetime_today
post_dateformat_hover	datetime
hide_ip	1
js_actstr_integration	0
imagetypes	jpg,jpeg,gif,png,pdf
checkmimetypes	1
imagemimetypes	image/jpeg,image/jpg,image/gif,image/png
imagequality	50
thumbheight	32
thumbwidth	32
hideuserprofileinfo	put_empty
integration_access	auto
integration_login	auto
integration_avatar	auto
integration_profile	auto
integration_private	auto
integration_activity	auto
boxghostmessage	0
userdeletetmessage	0
latestcategory_in	1
topicicons	1
onlineusers	1
debug	0
catsautosubscribed	0
showbannedreason	1
version_check	1
showthankyou	1
showpopthankyoustats	1
popthankscount	5
mod_see_deleted	1
bbcode_img_secure	text
listcat_show_moderators	1
lightbox	1
activity_limit	0
show_list_time	720
show_session_type	0
show_session_starttime	0
userlist_allowed	0
userlist_count_users	1
enable_threaded_layouts	0
category_subscriptions	post
topic_subscriptions	every
pubprofile	1
thankyou_max	10
email_recipient_count	0
email_recipient_privacy	bcc
email_visible_address
captcha_post_limit	0

Third-party components: UddeIm 2.6

Third-party SEF components: sh404sef: The file doesn't exist sh404sef.xml !

Plugins: System - Mootools Upgrade: Disabled | System - Mootools12: Disabled | Kunena Search 1.7.1

Modules: Kunena Latest 1.7.1 | Kunena Search 1.7.1

Yes, if you install a Captcha extension it will work with Joomla and therefore Kunena since the latter uses the former for registration.

RVS reCaptcha is one that I use (with free Google Captcha) and I also have SpambotCheck - you can find them on the Joomla extension website (K!1.7 and J!1.7.3 on my system).

It's amazing how fast people respond to questions! Fantastic!!! :woohoo: