[thelist] a PHP function question - solved

Bob Meetin ontheroad at frii.com
Mon Feb 12 12:00:08 CST 2007


Not captcha but yes something similar - home grown.  I have a little 
spam check.

It generates 2 random numbers, saves each to a variable, then adds the 
two and saves to a second variable.

The viewer sees:  How much is 7+19?

If answers correctly is allowed to complete the submit.  The numerical 
question is regenerated every time. This has effectively eliminated 90% 
or so of garbage submissions, perhaps a couple trickle by each week.  I 
suspect it's a combination of a few manually doing the math and pasting 
in the garbage in addition to robot spammers.  It was designed to be an 
obstacle to discourage easily defeated spammers and works. The quantity 
is not significant, just annoying. 

-Bob

Austin Harris wrote:
>> Here's another twist, I see lots of attempted submissions where the
>> spammer copies a dozen or so spam links into a message, usually 
>>
>> http://www.diet.whatever
>> http://www.diet2.whatever
>> etc...
>>
>>     
> That looks to me like automated stuff, do you have a captcha process or similar? (Just been sorting out a similar problem...)
>
>   





More information about the thelist mailing list