Changes in Forum Registration

[Theo Gottwald]

Because spam boots have cracked the captcha systems, even the one used by gmail, in the last two days we had hundreds of spam boots registrations and I have been forced to disable registration to stop it.
As many other sites, we will have to switch to manual registration. To join, the new user will have to drop an email to us and we will assign to it a temporary password.

If you have questions on this topic or problems to register, mail us please and include full name and contact data.

[Eros Olmi]

captcha system has been cracked months ago: http://www.allspammedup.com/2011/01/google-recaptcha-cracked/

Going manual registration usually kill forum increasing.
Instead apply a valid anti-span registration. It is quite impossible SMF has nothing about that:
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?action=search;type=19
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?action=search;basic_search=spam

Also SMF 2.0 Stable Version has just been released:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=437328.0

[Christopher Boss]

Same problem on my forums, so I shut down new registrations for awhile.

I got a glut of fake registrations over the last few days.

I do find it comes in spurts though. Give it a week and the bots may eventually give up.

Requiring real names for user names really helps though. Bots never seem to attempt to use real names, so it is easy to recognize their fake user names.

[José Roca]

 
I usually had about a dozen of spurious registrations every day, but suddenly began to receive hundreds, and most of them with gmail addresses. Apparently, they are using gmail as a bot.

[Charles Pegge]

I switched to manual registration about 6 months ago. Applications for membership are rare but participation is good. I would not consider going back to self registration under present conditions.

This is the message I use for prospective members:

This Forum does not have a self-registration facility but anyone interested in computing is welcome to join.

To gain membership please send an email to me cevpegge (at) oxygenbasic.org giving your  preferred username and a simple line or two saying what your interests are. All I need to know is that you are a real person 

If I am convinced you are a sentient being or at least pass the Turing test then I will send you your username and temporary password.

I will normally respond within a day or so.

Charles

[Tom Hanlin]

I suspect this will doom your site, Theo. I understand that it's a nuisance but, this may not be the best response.

[José Roca]

I don't think so. Most of the PB active members are already registered. They just send me a personal message in the PB forum and I register them manually. Almost 100% of self-registered accounts were spammers or pirates.