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#1 Re: Core development » https://fluxbb.org » 2010-08-07 21:41:59

damaxxed

What about reading the HTTP request headers of the browser for automatic language redirection?

E.g. my browser sends the following:

User-Agent: Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 6.1; U; de) Presto/2.6.30 Version/10.60
Accept-Language: de-DE, de;q=0.9, en;q=0.8

#2 Re: Feature requests » Anti Spam in core » 2010-05-06 21:26:27

damaxxed

OK, let's sum this up.

There is no general, static solution that can be applied to any board. Bots can be rewritten to fit every anti-bot-test (sooner or later). Additionally, every anti-spam measure must not interfere with the accessibility. This includes that solutions shouldn't depend on CSS, Flash or JavaScript in order to enable basic mobile browsers, text-only web browsers to use the registration form.

You have to ask yourself which visitors may be excluded in order to use anti-spam systems.

One that is easily adaptable and in my opinion a very good idea, is the question-answer captcha. Every forum admin can specify one or more questions which will be asked on registration. This eliminates a general spam bot for all FluxBB forums.

The hidden fields with css measure may look promising to me, but I personally don't know many factors: How easy is it for bots to parse and apply CSS and JavaScript? How do screenreaders, text-only browsers and old mobile devices handle this?

Image CAPTCHA implementations mustn't be disregarded. Even if most are cracked and every will be cracked sooner or later, the reCAPTCHA looks really good. It doesn't require JS and has audio files as alternatives for blind users.

#3 Re: Feature requests » Anti Spam in core » 2010-05-06 16:38:40

damaxxed
Smartys wrote:

1. It doesn't take me 30 seconds to fill in a form.

Well, then we have a bot + Smartys protection wink

Smartys wrote:

2. Adding something like that would require keeping track of "state" in some form (ie: sessions) which FluxBB currently does not do.

AFAIK FluxBB stores the registration time and ip in the database, so a session is unneeded?

#4 Re: Feature requests » Anti Spam in core » 2010-05-06 16:24:59

damaxxed
Paul wrote:

Isn't there something that can be done as regards speed of form completion/submit on the basis that a bot can complete the process faster than is humanly possible.

Sounds good. What about the following limits?

Registration only possible, 30 seconds after viewing registration page. Only 2 registrations per IP per day (?)

#6 Re: Feature requests » Anti Spam in core » 2010-05-05 22:47:28

damaxxed
Reines wrote:

I'm going to apply a patch to the site implementing that idea and see what happens.

Nice! I'm really interested.

#7 Re: Feature requests » Anti Spam in core » 2010-05-05 22:29:53

damaxxed

True. Nevertheless I'm convinced it's hard for bots to figure out which field is "hidden", because there are many ways of hiding a field:

  • visibility:hidden

  • display:none

  • position:absolute; left:-9999px;

  • .....

#8 Re: Feature requests » Anti Spam in core » 2010-05-05 22:14:55

damaxxed

Hey Reines

what is your exact implementation of "Hidden field with CSS"?

I'm thinking about something like the following:

  1. the username field is renamed to something new for every user/session (e.g. A1B2)

  2. a new hidden field with the name "username" is added as honeypot for bots

  3. some additional hidden fields with names with the same scheme like the real username field are added (e.g. A2B2, A2B3) as honeypots

I'm pretty sure no bot is able to pass this test. Any input?

#9 Feature requests » Anti Spam in core » 2010-05-05 21:17:30

damaxxed
Replies: 89

Hey

I'm just thinking about anti spam functions for FluxBB. It's my opinion that a basic spam protection (that works - no email confirmation) should be implemented in the core. I didn't follow FluxBB for a long time, please correct me if I have something wrong.

Currently

  • email verification
    + makes sure the provided email is real
    - no protection

Proposals

  • hide a field with CSS
    + no annoyance for users
    - a specialized bot can adapt easily (?)

  • CAPTCHA
    + very good protection
    - users have to spend time to do it

  • use blacklists (Akismet, stopforumspam.com)
    + no annoyance for users
    - recognizes only already known spammers
    - chances of false positives

What is your opinion on this? Any more proposals?

#10 Re: Feature requests » Facebook Connect plugin request » 2010-05-03 22:37:14

damaxxed

Actually a Facebook bridge can have many more features than login/registration:
- say "thanks" for threads / posts using the "I like" button
- "I like" the whole forum (button in the footer or somewhere else)
- receiving Facebook updates for subscribed threads, private messages and more
- updating Facebook status: "I just posted a thread 'xy' on 'z board'"

#11 Re: Feature requests » Facebook Connect plugin request » 2010-05-03 01:15:26

damaxxed

Long time no see, FluxBB community. smile

I agree with Reines, the philosophy of FluxBB is to be lightweight. However there's nothing to be said against a modification, is it?

Some negative points of the Facebook Graph API are:
- need to register your website for the OAuth key
- need either JavaScript or IFrame to display the FB Connect screen

#12 Re: Feature requests » Guests online text + little improvement on user count » 2008-08-02 00:52:16

damaxxed

That's the best solution for i18n: 3 Strings (as reference: Wordpress does it exactly like that):

  1. 0 Guests

  2. 1 Guest

  3. % Guests

#13 Re: General discussion » Web crawlers » 2008-07-31 12:50:07

damaxxed

If you really intent to block some spiders, you only strengthen the 3 (soon to be 4?) large search engines.

#14 Re: FluxBB discussion » A gathering of all FluxBB feeds » 2008-07-27 19:59:42

damaxxed

I'm interested in doing something like this. I love to read planetphp, but I'm sure I won't read fluxplanet as long as there are only 3 feeds combined.

#15 Re: Feature requests » Security: Rewrite the extension hook system » 2008-07-21 18:12:23

damaxxed

I don't want to call my results a "benchmark". For each option, I opened index.php in a new tab for 20 times (always with some seconds delay), then I calculated the average:

eval() average 0.08 seconds
include() average 0.33 seconds

MySQL always takes about 0.015 seconds

#16 Re: Feature requests » Security: Rewrite the extension hook system » 2008-07-21 17:47:34

damaxxed

Did anybody do any benchmark tests already? On my localhost the include()-hooks are about 25 times slower than the eval() hooks. I have enabled APC with the following config:

apc.enabled=1
apc.file_update_protection=2
apc.optimization=0
apc.shm_size=32
apc.shm_segments=1
apc.gc_ttl=1800
apc.ttl=1800
apc.num_files_hint=1024
apc.enable_cli=0
apc.include_once_override = 1

#17 Re: FluxBB discussion » so how much did punbb sell for? » 2008-07-21 17:24:13

damaxxed

In ancient times, when I used PunBB for the first time, I used it because PunBB was lightweight and seemed to be secure. It seems like SoftDeluxe don't wants the old, good, reputation of PunBB:

  • to port (*cough* copy *cough*) the latest hotfixes, the whole PunBB Development Team needed 5 days.

  • there are many "official" extensions, most of them in alpha or beta stage and some even insecure. The only stable ones are copies from 3rd-party-mods.

#18 Re: FluxBB discussion » E-Mail Obfuscation » 2008-07-21 10:51:40

damaxxed

I dislike the idea of e-mail obfuscation in the FluxBB core, because every anti-spam method that is implemented by default will be solved in a matter of time.

Users of Lynx and other text-based browsers and users of functions like Stylish(Firefox Addon) or NoScript(Firefox Addon) won't be able to de-obfuscate the anti-spam obfuscation.

Extensions are the perfect solution for this.

#19 Re: FluxBB discussion » Can you pls change the FluxBB forum header to red or something :) » 2008-07-16 18:26:42

damaxxed

Stylish for Firefox.

#brd-title, #brd-desc {
background-color:red;
}

#brd-navlinks {
background-color:maroon;
}

#21 Re: General support (1.2) » Error when restoring database backup » 2008-07-16 17:23:56

damaxxed

Oh common SuperMAG, you should be able to do some research on your own or are you 11 years old?

  1. Remove the INSERT INTO `pbb_search_matches` from the dumpfile (backup)

  2. Upload it / execute it

  3. Rebuild the search index in the admin panel

#22 Re: Feature requests » Multi-forum search » 2008-07-15 21:40:54

damaxxed

The checkboxes behave like <select>, you just aren't able to use SHIFT - why are they not good to use?

#23 Re: Feature requests » Avoid duplicate content in pagination » 2008-07-15 13:33:59

damaxxed

A 301 Permanent Redirection has no disadvantages, hasn't it?

#24 Re: Feature requests » Avoid duplicate content in pagination » 2008-07-15 13:00:12

damaxxed

Why don't you redirect always to /page/1/ if no page is set? (and link directly to /page/1/ in index.php and viewforum.php)

#25 Re: Feature requests » Multi-forum search » 2008-07-15 12:57:27

damaxxed

Thanks Paul, that's exactly how I imagined it smile

Reines wrote:

Die. Select looks good and works fine, checkboxes look messy and are more annoying to use.

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