The Triumph 2000/2500/2.5 Register Forum

We have just been hit by another load of spam registrations. I had 127 to deal with this morning, and all of them have been deleted and banned by IP.
I suspect they are spammers as I can't imagine people from kazakhstan being interested in our cars!!

However, if a "real one" got lost in this, please contact me directly and I will sort it out.

It would seem that PHPBB (our forum providers) have had their servers "compromised" in some way, which is allowing these spoof registrations to get through the usual anti spam checks.

We hope they can resolve it quickly, so that we can re open to new registrations.

Bear with us please.

Alan

The phpBB forum that I administer hasn't suffered from spam registrations since I dispensed with Captcha and implemented instead a Question and Answer. I made sure to ask a question to which there could be only one answer, and one that any person not involved in the subject matter of the forum would be unlikely to know without searching.

I can't recall the form of the Register's anti-spam check as it's a long while since I registered, but perhaps it wasn't sufficiently strong?

While I'm here, I'll mention that when I want to take a look at the forum using my iPad instead of the desktop computer, I'm 'spammed' with the invitation to activate Tapatalk. What an annoying app!

We do use captcha, and it is up to date, perhaps the simple q&a would work?
I use touchbb lite on my iPhone and iPad for this forum, and it's pretty good. I never get 'asked' for tapatalk unless I log in on a browser on the iPhone.

Alan Chatterton wrote:I use touchbb lite on my iPhone and iPad for this forum, and it's pretty good. I never get 'asked' for tapatalk unless I log in on a browser on the iPhone.

I just use a fat finger .......

MUT

Alan Chatterton wrote:We do use captcha, and it is up to date, perhaps the simple q&a would work?
I use touchbb lite on my iPhone and iPad for this forum, and it's pretty good. I never get 'asked' for tapatalk unless I log in on a browser on the iPhone.

I was using Captcha as the check when spam registrations started coming in (not many, but enough to give me a warning). I found reports, on phpBB's help forum and elsewhere, that spammers had developed programs to automatically overcome Captcha. Also, some people (myself included) can find it difficult to read a Captcha.

Q&A was said to be much stronger, and I'm sure it is, especially if a bit harder than, e.g., "2+3 =?" as such sums are fairly popular for Q&A and may not be sufficiently robust against spammers software. I've not been troubled by spam registrations since adopting Q&A, and that was two or three years ago. The question I ask is "In which city is the NRM based?", which the majority of, if not all, potential forum members will know the answer to. Spammers, especially those based overseas, would probably need to do an internet search for the answer, and hopefully that would be too much trouble for them. I deliberately use the initials NRM rather than the full name so as to make it that bit harder for spammers.

I've been logging into the Register forum via Bing on my tablet, so that is why I keep receiving the Tapatalk invitation. Thanks for pointing that out, Alan, though it shouldn't happen as it's still an unsolicited intrusion (i.e. spam!). I'll restrict to logging in on the desktop computer in future; it's more user friendly anyway in situations where the portability of a tablet is not needed.

I've looked at the settings and there doesn't appear to be an option to turn the tapatalk request off.
I'll look over the weekend and change the security to q&a hopefully that will sort it.

Alan, thanks for looking into the Tapatalk thing.

Note that I've edited (almost re-written!) my post since you put your last one up. I've added a bit more detail to my argument for Q&A and have included, as an example, the Question that appears on the forum I administer. I feel confident that your planned change to Q&A on the Register forum will pay dividends.

Following on from David's very helpful advice, registrations are now open again!!!

Fingers crossed we get no unfriendly visitors back this time!

3 days on, still no problems!!
Sorted I think!