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eclectica
2006-11-28, 10:17
Are you a human or a bot? Well that is the question that a captcha tries to determine. Who knows why spammers would waste their time on this small forum with no traffic, but I suppose it is in their nature to relentlessly spam everywhere. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.

Spam has reduced the quality of the internet experience and threatens its openness.

Since August captcha image verification has been turned on for new registrations, guest posting in the filesharing forums, and for the Contact Us (http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/sendmessage.php) page.

Now it's time for me to kick it up a notch, because ever since this month of November the spammers have been increasing. The spam has occurred with an onslaught of new member registrations. So I'll be adjusting the settings, making them more difficult for users until I see that they are working.

By default it seems that vBulletin has the Image Verification Library of GD (Simple Font) and the following two of five options selected for Image Verification Options:
[ ] Random Font
[ ] Random Font Size
[x] Random Slant
[x] Random Color
[ ] Random Shapes

See the screenshot of the options menu from the admin control panel, posted on the bottom as an attachment.

The first thing I'll try is changing the Image Verification Library to GD (True Type Font), and then if that doesn't work enabling more of the five variables.

There are some clever captchas over at vBulletin.org which do not come standard with vBulletin. The two that I saw there are: NoSpam! - an alternative to CAPTCHA images (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=124828) and Enhanced Captcha Image Verification - stop bots from signing up!! (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=132482). They involve answering questions or solving a puzzle.

I look forward to questions like these on customized captchas:
Pluto is best descibed as:
1. planet
2. minor planet
3. trans-Neptunian object
4. Kuiper belt object
5. 134340 Pluto
6. Pluto
7. some of the above
8. all of the above