SPAMing php Captcha pages

Thanks webwiz!
I checked out the site. It's a cool idea; BUT
I don't know for sure that it's a bot doing the SPAMing.
Reason? Because I am using a Php form with a"Captcha" type of process. The SPAMs are coming in at a 10 per hour rate. Not too aggressive, but they go to an email instead of a DB. That email gets filled quickly and monitoring is not practical 24/7.
It still sounds good, though. Anyway, thanks for the idea.

Rick (shobuz99)

demonhale

My Captcha is coded by dagondesign.com. He has a new version now, so maybe I should look into that. It may have some features to help me with this. As far as secure goes, I'm not sure what additional security you mean, other than that it's a Php server-side form. Sorry I'm so dumb on this point.

Otherwise, I'm thinking humans, too. Reason is: how slow the posts come in.. 1 or 2 in 15 minutes, then maybe 20 in 5 minutes.. as though they made a concerted effort to bomb me into submission. Then it backs off for a while.. like 2 or 3 hours.....then starts up again.

The good news is; the Spammer doesn't get satisfaction because I simply delete them from my email. They never get posted. Small consolation for me, though. Since I have to deal with a stuffed mailbox every few hours.. PITA!

Anyway, thanks

Rick (Shobuz99)

Webwiz,
Thanks for the suggestions. No I haven't looked at akismet; but I will.
The posts seem to have stopped. Haven't gotten one in two days.. However, I'm not assuming it's over. I am starting to think it is a human; since the poster is getting no satisfaction from doing it because I don't post the SPAM. He has no way of knowing for sure if it is annoying me or disrupting the web site. I guess we'll see what happens..
Thanks again for your help.

Rick (Shobuz99)

andy206uk;221298 wrote: I use the following code in my PHP formmail script to ascertain if there is anything a bit spammy in any of the posted data:

<?php
foreach($_POST as $postvar => $postdata) {

    //***** check for spammy stuff

    if(substr_count($postdata,\"\r\") > 0)             {     $error[input] = \"Illegal Character in form input\";     }
    if(substr_count($postdata,\"\n\") > 0)             {     $error[input] = \"Illegal Character in form input\";     }
    if(substr_count($postdata,\"%0a\") > 0)             {     $error[input] = \"Illegal Character in form input\";     }
    if(substr_count($postdata,\"%0d\") > 0)             {     $error[input] = \"Illegal Character in form input\";     }
    if(substr_count($postdata,\"Content-Type:\") > 0) {     $error[input] = \"Illegal Character in form input\";     }
    if(substr_count($postdata,\"bcc:\") > 0)            {     $error[input] = \"Illegal Character in form input\";     }
    if(substr_count($postdata,\"to:\") > 0)             {     $error[input] = \"Illegal Character in form input\";     }
    if(substr_count($postdata,\"cc:\") > 0)             {     $error[input] = \"Illegal Character in form input\";     }

}
?>

All of the above are common things that a spammer will try to inject into a message to send spam. Once you've detected spam you can either make the spammer believe that it works and give the normal output, or return them to another page with a 'no spam' error.

The spammers like easy exploitable code - add this little bit of code and they'll likely give up and leave you alone....

Will this work on a html FormMail form?

andy,
I would like to insert your code into the php formmail that I am using... where within the form code should I insert this?
I'm not good at all when it comes to code structure and ettiquette..
Rick (Shobuz99)

Andy,

I inserted your code in the formmail.php that I use from Dagon.

I tried testing it, but what I sent got through to my email.
Is there a way I can test this to make sure it's working and that
I haven't inserted your code in the wrong place?

Thanks very much for your help on this. I do appreciate it!
Rick (Shobuz99)

Steve1943;222677 wrote: Slightly off topic but it has long puzzled me.
Why do they send these gibberish mails - what's in it for them?

Steve

I guess they get some sorta sick kick out of sending this crap.. I don't know.
I've never been good at figuring out people with mental problems.

It kind of mirrors the SPAM that gets sent out every day that gives you a link that never works... no I haven't tried them, but I have checked their domain
and nearly every time, it's phony... so you can't contact them, why would they send you the SPAM in the first place.. same as your question.
Beats me.
Rick (Shobuz99)