[thelist] tracking spammers

[Bob Meetin]

Several of my websites commonly get hit by either low paid human spammers or spam bots.  The registration form employs a good captcha function and the form IS being used.  Recently I started capturing data about the spammer wanna-be's.  The patterns are obvious.

IP: 173.242.118.133
Name: Affesibre
Email:testxr30 at o2.pl
Username: Affesibre

1) Although they use differing email suffixes, .pl is common and none of the 750+ valid members use that domain.
2) Name matches username = nonsense
3) IP address varies
4) Password = nonsense and always 10 characters
5) Special hidden fields are not being filled in

I can trace the IP to various countries, not much help. There are valid registered members on the site who register with the same name and username, so I can't really use that, although I've considered respectfully requesting that username and name not match.

Password = key. I was thinking that these were humanoid but in that the passwords are always 10 random characters, that makes me think perhaps otherwise, perhaps the same program has been passed around the spammer block. Idea: If  $name == $username&&  string length $password == 10 then choke.

Other ideas?

-- 
Bob Meetin
dotted i - http://www.dottedi.biz
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bobmeetin