guestbook spam

Thanks JTD and cdnmama.

Missed the robots.txt validator link on the tutorial page when I first read the page. With your info and the validator I should be all set to create the robots.txt file.

Thanks again.

Trevor

You're welcome Trevor

Deb

No Problem Trevor

yes, I have encountered similar problem. You can always delete the old guestbook and start a new.

I thought I would share an example of the type of posts I receive in my guestbooks because this one is the strangest ones so far. This poster left a message in 2 of my books today, 4 minutes apart. I've never seen someone ask to have their message removed

Floor mats. Remove my mesage pls

and of course they left their floormat website link. The IP tracks back to the Hilton Hotel in the Bronx, New York City

Deb

Hi Deb and everyone else,

I'm upgrating from {phpBook-1.50} to this {Advanced Guestbook 2.3.1}. I want to add a backgroung-image and change the layout. So any pointers to related topics is welcome.

cdnmama wrote:The worst are people who leave their porn site and add a javascript in the post to automatically direct you to that site when the guestbook is viewed. Even trying to delete the post in admin will not work unless javascript is turned off in the browser.

I would like you to send me a private message (posting it might give bad ideas to some) about the source code of those who use javascript or other means to automatically direct people to their site. I want to check if banning some words like <script>, javascript, jscript, etc. might be a way to disable them.

Hi Dan.....if you want to have a background image, you would edit the header.php file in the templates directory. Find this line at the bottom....

<body bgcolor="$VARS[pbgcolor]" link="$VARS[link_color]" vlink="$VARS[link_color]">

change it to something like this....

<body bgcolor="$VARS[pbgcolor]" link="$VARS[link_color]" vlink="$VARS[link_color]" background="/guestbook/img/background.jpg">

Edit the background=" " as you require it.

To change the top header graphic, you would edit the body.php file in the templates directory. Find this line towards the top....
<td width="56%"><img src="$GB_PG[base_url]/img/gbook.gif" width="140" height="15">

Edit the img src=" " as you require it....hope that helps

You asked about the source code for those links that people like to leave sometimes. I don't have a copy of it anymore but I think it was just a basic javascript redirection code...
META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0;URL=porn link here"

I haven't had a post like that in awhile....yay! Hope I don't while I'm on holidays this summer

Deb

Thanks Deb for the pointers.

A meta tag with a refresh to another url, a script, or even some php codes, nothing seams to work if HTML is off.

Hmmm! How come I cannot link an image on this forum... even if the 'img' tag botton is up there?

I do have an image verification mod for the guestbook to stop spam but I never got round to installing it. So I came up with a simple quick fix. I assume they are using a program or script to send the data straight to the addentry page. Simply add the following to the start of the addentry.php code before everything else.
<?php
$url = getenv('HTTP_REFERER');
$url = parse_url($url);
$domain = strtolower($url['host']);
if (($domain != 'www.carbonize.co.uk') && ($domain != 'carbonize.co.uk')) Header('Location: http://www.carbonize.co.uk/');
?>

Changing the carbonize.co.uk to the domain of your site. The Location part is the page they get sent to if they didn't get to the addentry page from your site.

Hmm just got spammed again so maybe they are spoofing the refer. I'll try and dig u[ the image verification script.

I've uploaded my image verification script to http://www.carbonize.co.uk/verification.zip

Ok I've overhauled the image verification script. It now takes them back to the addentry form with an error message at the top if they get the code wrong. I have also rewrote the instructions to make then clearer, I hope, and included iinstructions for people using 2.2. Finally I have also changed how it appears in the form so it makes more sense to the user.

You can get it from http://www.carbonize.co.uk/verification.zip

Thanks Carbonize for the verification script!

I took a look at your guestbook to see it in action...looks great. I've been using the robots.txt for almost 3 weeks now to try to block the bots from my guestbook folder. I've had a few known spammers post since then. I'm not clear on how bots actually work though. Are they sent out to just post once? or does the bot return with info where the books are and sent to post again and again?

I just got back from a week away, so I hope to give your script a try over the next day or two. Thanks for sharing it

Deb

robot.txt only works on bots. doesnt affect spammers at all.

JTD wrote:robot.txt only works on bots. doesnt affect spammers at all.

isn't it the bots that leave the same spam in many different guestbooks?

Deb