Latest posts for the topic "Advanced Guestbook - Markus Wepfer"

Advanced Guestbook - Markus Wepfer

Webmaster — GMT

[quote]
Hi

I've been using your Advanced Guestbook for many years. It's an excellent
tool, easy to administer and to handle. For a couple of month though, my
guestbook was being spammed with tons of entries from people who haven't
even visited the mainpage. A google search proved that the same comment is
being transmitted to hundreds of webpages by the same person within a short
amount of time.

This encouraged me to add even more security features to Advanced Guestbook,
such as:
- autoban: automatically ban ip-addresses that have posted more than a
certain number of messages
- check messages for similarity (I don't want to see the same text all the
time)
- allow only a certain limit of messages per day
- enforce loading of message form (as in version 2.3.4); plus enforce a
certain delay time between form display and posting of message
- logging of message flow (accepted and rejected messages) with optional
email notification

All these new features can easily be maintained via the admin interface.
They reduced the amount of spam in my board (www.freerelationshipadvice.com)
by more than 90%

As I think these enhancements can be helpful to other webmasters also, I
would like to share my version (named as 2.5.0) with you.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Regards
Markus Wepfer[/quote]

http://www.proxy2.de/files/mw_guestbook.zip

Carbonize — GMT

Hate to say this but none of his mods actually stop spam until after the fact. I just looked at his guestbook and the last three entries are spam - http://www.freerelationshipadvice.com/guestbook/index.php there are two other spam entries on the first page (at this precise moment).

Approve Feature

balleyne — GMT

I've coded a simple approve feature into my guestbook, if anyone is interested (fishkiss.ca).

It just simply blocks entries from being displayed on the guestbook until I go into the admin panel, and approve them using the Easy Admin.

This helps prevent your last few entries (or any of them for that matter) from being spam.

webmaster@fishkiss.ca

Re: Approve Feature

JTD — GMT

[quote="balleyne"]I've coded a simple approve feature into my guestbook, if anyone is interested (fishkiss.ca).

It just simply blocks entries from being displayed on the guestbook until I go into the admin panel, and approve them using the Easy Admin.

This helps prevent your last few entries (or any of them for that matter) from being spam.

webmaster@fishkiss.ca[/quote]

And is that supposed to be new? Carbs Lazarus Guestbook already has this feature.

balleyne — GMT

Good point.

drdave — GMT

I applied the mod a few days ago but still get spam. guestbook 2.3.1

Not only that but I am not even getting the email notification anymore when someone post.

Any help appreciated.

-------------------

Never mind I found my answer. You said you never wrote one.

Thanks
Dave

JTD — GMT

[quote="drdave"]I applied the mod a few days ago but still get spam. guestbook 2.3.1

Not only that but I am not even getting the email notification anymore when someone post.

Any help appreciated.

I could not find it.

-------------------

Never mind I found my answer. You said you never wrote one.

Thanks
Dave[/quote]

Why dont you just upgrade to Lazarus. That will save all the headaches.

drdave — GMT

Yes been thinking about it.

When I have some time I think I will.

My GuestBook is not that active so I am sure there will be mostly spam in the meantime so I can always use the admin approval feature. A good fishing net to delete all that garbage.

Thanks
Dave

suav — GMT

I'm new to this gestbook therefore I will need a lot of help from many of you. I too is getting a lot of spam on my guestbook. How do I get the Admin Approval Feature installed? Any help is appreciated.

JTD — GMT

It is built into lazarus. Dont know about advanced guestbook. I dont use AVG.

kinks — GMT

hi

I thought by removing the URL cell this would deter people bothering to spam (as all they want to do is leave their URL so they get some hits)
but frustratingly most of these morons can still leave their URL??!! how do they do it? because i can't leave mine if i try.
Anyhow, is there anti-spam code out there that can sit within 'guestbook' to block all this shite we receive?

wayne (UK)

Carbonize — GMT

1 - You only removed the url input from the form it can still be sent to the guestbook. You would have to remove the url stuff from addclass.php

2 - Read the very first thread of the Advanced Guestbook forum.

kinks — GMT

Carb, yer the man!
i eventually saw those earlier threads and visited your site for the bot mod.

hassle free, mods went in relatively straight forward for a novice like me. it's only been 24hrs odd but already my guestbook has gone from 4 to 5 spam entries a day to NONE (so far) it's looking good mate.

sincerely, thank you very much!

wayne

Lithium_Grim — GMT

I modified the guestbook so that messages containing the censor words are blocked. Offcourse you have to make a good list of censorwords, but it helps a lot! It checks the words in the url/email and message fields. I also added a banip option in the easy admin tab so that i don't need to copy paste the whole time. For this to work i also had to replace the host adress with the real ip from the spammer.

Carbonize — GMT

Yes your first mod is somethign I am adding to Lazarus for version 1.6 by request. The second is something I already have in Lazarus but I made Lazarus store both IP and Hostname.

Lithium_Grim — GMT

[quote="Carbonize"]Yes your first mod is somethign I am adding to Lazarus for version 1.6 by request. The second is something I already have in Lazarus but I made Lazarus store both IP and Hostname.[/quote]
great! I just finished work so that the human identification works with random words and not only armadillo. Just added a new table book_verify with an id and word field and than let it randomly pick a word that the user has to type. Maybe a good idea for you too?

Carbonize — GMT

I have already written the code for a Lazarus image verification option. I like my current human verification method because there is no limit to what it can be. You can use HTML to make it anything. Yes the random word option is good but would possibly confuse users as, and I mean this with respect, a lot of them are not that computer savvy. Trust me I should show you some of the emails I get asking for help

Lithium_Grim — GMT

Lol But aren't you afraid that they will adapt the bots to fill in smurphing (had a look at lazarus.. very kewl btw)?
Is it a realtime build jpg or one stored in a database?

Carbonize — GMT

I use GD to create the image so the image will be different every time. The characters are based upon an md5 hash of some characters generated with the form and the database username. Well the basics of it are anyway.

Spammer

scott kleiman — GMT

Carbonize:

I am having a problem with a spammer on guestbook version 2.3.1. I'm not a programmer so I'm limited per say. The spammer has different IP address all the time so its hard to stop. Do you have advice? Do you know if I can port over my guestbook entries into the new version of the guestbook and how to do it?

Carbonize — GMT

Update to version 2.4 of the Advanced Guestbook as it now comes with CAPTCHA (image verification).

Spammer

scott kleiman — GMT

Can I upgrade without losing my current entries in the guestbook? Could you help me in some way?

Carbonize — GMT

You copy the database information from your current config.inc.php file to the one in 2.4 then upload the lot and run the update file found in the new misc folder.

Can you help me with this

scott kleiman — GMT

Dear Carbonize:

Can you do this for me? It's not my specality? I don;t wnat to mess stuff up. I trust you. I'll pay you to do this for us? I certainly can send you payment whereever you are in the world?

Scott

drdave — GMT

Never mind. I got it!

>>Hi I am also following this topic.

Not understanding too clearly.

The mod below is for v 2.3.1?

http://carbonize.co.uk/Board/viewtopic.php?t=125

Thanks
Dave<<

Carbonize — GMT

If you send me your FTP details I will do the update for you.

drdave — GMT

However I do not see this line of code in templates/form.php

if(document.book.comment.value == "") {

I see several similar ones however like

document.book.gb_comment.focus();

document.book.gb_name.value=trim(document.book.gb_name.value);

document.book.gb_comment.value=trim(document.book.gb_comment.value);

and so on but none like the one you mentioned on that page.

my gb v is 2.3.1

thanks
Dave

Carbonize — GMT

I know you said you would send me your FTP details but I never received them.

archboogie — GMT

Okay. So I'm thinking of changing to Lazarus. Is there a way to transfer the current guestbook entries over to the new guestbook - with the current info intact; name, date, comments, etc?

Also, I had read a message a while back about coding Advanced Guestbook so it prompts you to enter an alphanumeric verification. I applied it to some of the guestbooks that I maintain and it reduced spam by 90%. But, I can't find it now to do the same to other guestbooks. Does anyone know of this coding?

Thanks.

Carbonize — GMT

Lazarus is based upon the Advanced Guestbook and as such it can use your existing AG database but requires you to run an update file.

Advanced Guestbook 2.4 and later comes with image verification to prevent spam.

archboogie — GMT

Thanks

[quote="Carbonize"]Lazarus is based upon the Advanced Guestbook and as such it can use your existing AG database but requires you to run an update file.

Advanced Guestbook 2.4 and later comes with image verification to prevent spam.[/quote]