Bots are often programmed to defeat the most popular validation methods, such as phpBB's graphical validator, but even a simple custom validation will defeat virtually all of them. I just use a randomly generated 6-character hex string that people have to fill in at the bottom of the form, and since I started doing that, I've gone from hundreds of spams to only a single spam submission - and even that one may have been put through by a human.
The problem with graphics is that a sufficiently obfuscated graphic is also hard for people to see, and if the graphic doesn't load, people can't submit the form. Text is easier to defeat, but anyone who's spending that much effort to defeat your site security specifically can probably come up with much nastier ways to mess with you. Email bombing, or loading your most processor-intensive page hundreds of times per second, etc. Your security only needs to be good enough to stop the usual stupid, impersonal spam bot, but not so good that it irritates your users.
-
Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
-
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
<code> <a> <b> <big>
<blockquote> <br /> <dd>
<dl> <dt> <em> <font>
<h1> <h2> <h3> <h4>
<h5> <h6> <hr /> <i>
<li> <nbsp> <ol> <p>
<small> <strike> <strong>
<sub> <sup> <table>
<td> <th> <tr> <tt>
<u> <ul>
-
Snippets of code should be wrapped in
<code> tags not
<pre> tags. In fact, <pre>
tags should generally be avoided. If they must
be used, extreme care should be
taken to ensure that their contents do not
have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent
horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor
intervention).
-
Want more info? How to link
or How to display code and escape characters
are good places to start.
|
