Forum Spam?

[Aaron]

Hmmm... I don't know where this should really go but...

I run a small (~25 members) forum based on phpBB. Recently we've been getting about 3-4 new members per day. They don't actually post but they all contain a link to a website in their profile. The links go to various websites selling all kinds of junk. I assume that these accounts are being made by bots.

Has anyone else experienced this and, if so, is there a way to stop it? The best we've come out with so far is to require account activation and to disallow numbers in the usernames (the spam accounts usually tag on random numbers to the account names).

Thanks!

[Allen]

Use another forum which requires you to write in a code displayed on a picture so bots can't sign up.

[Atomic]

We had that on lethalhardware. all the bots were signing up with the same domain luckily, so we just banned it.

have you got the latest version of the BB software?

[Aaron]

I don't think we have, no.

We haven't installed many hacks so I guess upgrading wouldn't be a problem either.