Is there a way to tighten up the security on blog posts? Such as making people enter a Captcha code before a blog post is accepted?

Spammers seem to arrive in waves, and when they do, they seem to gravitate toward posting a spate of spam posts, plural, in the first category of the blog section (Aliens and UFOs).

If there was a captcha code required before people could create a blog posts, it might make it harder for them to automate the posting of spam to their respective blogs.

Or even better, maybe in lieu of a captcha code, they could have to answer a question like "What is four divided by two?" Anything that would make it harder for spammers to post their garbage would be a good thing.

Fortunately, there's not usually a spam issue. But I suspect that what happens is that someone out there "cracks" the security of social sites that use code similar to PE's, and then the spammers sneak into those sites while they can, before the security loophole gets closed by site owners.

So help me, if there was a spell to make spammers' computers crash, I'd be sorely tempted to use it.

As would I. I just reported two from today. One with fifa coins and the other with haircare products.

Likes2Read wrote:Is there a way to tighten up the security on blog posts? Such as making people enter a Captcha code before a blog post is accepted?

Spammers seem to arrive in waves, and when they do, they seem to gravitate toward posting a spate of spam posts, plural, in the first category of the blog section (Aliens and UFOs).

If there was a captcha code required before people could create a blog posts, it might make it harder for them to automate the posting of spam to their respective blogs.

Or even better, maybe in lieu of a captcha code, they could have to answer a question like "What is four divided by two?" Anything that would make it harder for spammers to post their garbage would be a good thing.

Fortunately, there's not usually a spam issue. But I suspect that what happens is that someone out there "cracks" the security of social sites that use code similar to PE's, and then the spammers sneak into those sites while they can, before the security loophole gets closed by site owners.

So help me, if there was a spell to make spammers' computers crash, I'd be sorely tempted to use it.

They're most likely not people but "bots". These are computer programs that search out certain types of social software (ie. Wordpress, MediaWiki, etc) that either hasn't been secured properly, or has an exploit/bug.

The bots do various things, but mainly they leave spammy comments with clickbait links. Once upon a time, your rank among google results was driven by links to and from your web site. This was the crude measurement of a "popular" site back in the day. The bots were killer for getting your google ranking up quickly.

But now the rules have changed and links don't mean squat compared to conversions and tracking. But I digress. In any case, I think many of these bots are rogue. Left running and forgotten about, or even possibly installed as malware.

The only protection is to use something like ReCAPTCHA or equivalent. The lesser CAPTCHA, et. al., have been compromised.

Sorry to geek out on ya there, but this is what I do in R.L.

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I'm a nerd, too, lol. I was a programmer/analyst for 15 years, before downsizing and offshoring knocked me off that career path. So I'm all about the techie details. And if Magnolia and Ash are able to pass that advice along to the tech team that works on ParaEcho, so much the better.

I actually agree with you, it's some sort of bot or automated process that's plastering spam all over. But someone, somewhere is setting it in motion. They're the ones whose computer should go POOF in a mushroom cloud.

Eugh, 100% no math please. On bad days I can barely do subtraction within 10 seconds. :lol: But I do agree something has to be done. Oh! Maybe the profile has to filled out to a certain extent before you can post? that might work, at least temporarily. Temporary is better than nothing.

A very good suggestion! I was able to remove the offending members, but when I checked on the admin end for any capability of CAPTCHA, or other secondary verification, there was not any present. I will request this be a modification through the developers. 1s

creepyhollows wrote:A very good suggestion! I was able to remove the offending members, but when I checked on the admin end for any capability of CAPTCHA, or other secondary verification, there was not any present. I will request this be a modification through the developers. 1s

What forum software is it? I'm sure there's an add-on/plugin for it.

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