How to stop phpBB forum spam

Filed in archive Anti-Spam Tools on March 7, 2007

We all love forums, because you can share your opinion, get expert advice, exchange news with members, form communities and stay within boundaries, since there are always moderators to delete any posts who might insult, troll or spam.

phpBB is one of the widely used forum platforms, easy to set up and to maintain. Webmasters all over the world love it for its ease of use, not only to moderate but also for the members. But it can suck heavily if you do not employ security, because spambots nowadays can easily sign up, come up with meaningful signature and even working emails. So, sooner or later, as your forum gains momentum, you'll get tons of viagra, prozac, stock and other spam comments.

Every forum administrator I know first tries the obvious ones: forbid unregistered posts and personally authorize every sign-up. But, when new members start pouring in by bushels, one has a full-time job just seeping through the good ones from spam ones.

Help Net Security's Bob Allen suggests the following techniques - block open proxy registrants, configure member profile required fields, use cryptographic signing, use textual confirmation, disable website signatures, and fool spambots:

"phpBB is one of the most popular software products for running online forums. As spammers found forums as a fantastic breeding ground for sending their commercial messages, phpBB admins have a lot of troubles to keep the integrity of their forums. I have been administering a couple of phpBB boards and this is the list of top anti-spambot mods."

Read through his whole article for detailed explanations and links to mods.

Great work if I might add.