phpQuestioner Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 I have had these idiot to keep spamming my email form. So I got their IP Address & blocked it; but they just keep getting on a different computer. What is the best we to prevent them from spamming me with my email form? I thought about setting a cookie once the email form was processed and redirecting any further attempt to email me for 24 hours, but that poses a problem too. Then what if the same customer forgot something and wanted to email me again; they would not be able to for 24 hours. So anyone got any suggestions on what I should do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seb hughes Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 Erm, do you think its a bot doing this or an actual human? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel0 Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 Is it a bot or a human? If it is a bot, then CAPTCHA should take care of it. If it is a human, then setup a registration system and only allow registered users to register. Use stuff like email confirmation and only allow one user per email. That should make it more difficult. There isn't really a way to stop users from posting spam. They can always find some proxy or use stuff like Tor to circumvent IP address banning and they can always just register a new account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seb hughes Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 If you want I will post some code to a security image I made. What you could do is, have the form send an email to them to verify there email address, and oonce this has done send the email, so for the time being the email could be stored in a txt file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phpQuestioner Posted May 14, 2007 Author Share Posted May 14, 2007 Probably a human; I have an advertisement on a classified site and I think someone that does not want me to have it on there, because they have a product similar to mine for sale. They have sent me fowl language and threats; so I am trying to figure out how to block these morons - know what I mean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Little Guy Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 Simple Image CAPTCHA: http://snippets.tzfiles.com/snippet.php?id=6 You can make it more advanced if you would like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
per1os Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 Sorry about that, just noticed it said email form. I would do a check on the email and make sure it is a valid email address. But other than that I think you are stuck, you could try disallowing that IP, but that is not a good choice. Best of Luck. EDIT: Along the cookie lines, you could set the cookie to a random md5 hash, email that along with the email and if they are spamming disallow that hash for 24 hours. That way it just hit's the target person. Downside is it is easy to erase cookies if they are smart ennough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Little Guy Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 OK... Get their IP, and next time they spam with that IP, download lots of Trojan virus onto their computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seb hughes Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 ^hmmmm, First you need to access there pc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phpQuestioner Posted May 14, 2007 Author Share Posted May 14, 2007 Thanks for the suggestions guys. The captcha is a cool idea, but I wonder if that would not bother people enough where they would not send me email. I was using a page to tell these stupid people they have been banned; as a figurative "I Got You Back" kind of thing. But I guess that just enticed them to find other means of doing this. So what I think I will do is ban there IP address, but remove the "You Have Been Banned" page. So when they try to send me a email; they will be blocked from sending me the email and the will never be the wiser, because I will direct them to a "Success Page". I think that trick might work; they will think they have sent me the email and really they will not have sent it to me. I hope that will work. PS: I wish I knew how to do that "The Little Guy"; that would be sweet revenge. - LOL!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Little Guy Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 cant activeX do something? You could also when they press submit take them to a page (not a submit page), that creates lots of pop ups and the pop ups open lots of porn web sites, and then some of those sites have virus that may get placed on his/her computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seb hughes Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 Thanks for the suggestions guys. The captcha is a cool idea, but I wonder if that would not bother people enough where they would not send me email. I was using a page to tell these stupid people they have been banned; as a figurative "I Got You Back" kind of thing. But I guess that just enticed them to find other means of doing this. So what I think I will do is ban there IP address, but remove the "You Have Been Banned" page. So when they try to send me a email; they will be blocked from sending me the email and the will never be the wiser, because I will direct them to a "Success Page". I think that trick might work; they will think they have sent me the email and really they will not have sent it to me. I hope that will work. PS: I wish I knew how to do that "The Little Guy"; that would be sweet revenge. - LOL!!! The thing is most people DON'T have static IPs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
per1os Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 The IP suggestion is not a very good one. I can easily spoof my IP by going through a proxy. Especially if it is just for an email form, proxies would be very useful. I think the cookie idea was a good one, but anyone can clear cookies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Little Guy Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 I don't think you can stop email spammers, you can only slow them down with tricks, and soon they will stop when they get annoyed by all the steps they need to to take to send one email. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel0 Posted May 15, 2007 Share Posted May 15, 2007 IP banning: They can use a proxy or similar things. Email verification: Stuff like http://www.mytrashmail.com/ will take care of that. CAPTCHA: Useless against humans. It's purpose is to tell humans from computers. It stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". Cookies: Can be deleted. User registration: New users can be registered. I.e.: Human spammers are hard to prevent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radar Posted May 15, 2007 Share Posted May 15, 2007 Do what I did -- setup box trapper -- i get 0 spam mails -- and the reason is because bots can't reply to emails because they can't recieve them... box trapper works in a cool way.. when an email is sent, the sender gets an immediate email back stating that they need to reply to verify their address... Once they verify the address by replying (leaving subject line intact), their email address is added to the white list (they never have to do that step again unless i remove them) and their original email is passed onto my inbox.. works wonders i tell ya... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel0 Posted May 15, 2007 Share Posted May 15, 2007 Do what I did -- setup box trapper -- i get 0 spam mails -- and the reason is because bots can't reply to emails because they can't recieve them... box trapper works in a cool way.. when an email is sent, the sender gets an immediate email back stating that they need to reply to verify their address... Once they verify the address by replying (leaving subject line intact), their email address is added to the white list (they never have to do that step again unless i remove them) and their original email is passed onto my inbox.. works wonders i tell ya... It has a disadvantage. What about those emails which are supposed to be automated? Like email confirmations or lost password URLs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taith Posted May 15, 2007 Share Posted May 15, 2007 i like the blind blocking idea... a) require them to sign up, b) put a filter on the email script, so they would never know the difference when you forward them to the "success" page Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel0 Posted May 15, 2007 Share Posted May 15, 2007 i like the blind blocking idea... a) require them to sign up, b) put a filter on the email script, so they would never know the difference when you forward them to the "success" page Might work quite well. Just say "Thank you for contacting us" if blocked of if success. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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