Comment Form Spam

September 13th, 2006, 10:26 am

I have some sites that use an ASP driven comment/contact system which emails me the data. Problem is a lot of bots are finding the form and sending me all sorts of spam with it. So what I'd like to impliment one of those things (cant think of what they're called) that have the random numbers and letters that you have to enter to verify that you're not a bot.

I didnt want to waste a lot of time writing one, and couldnt search for any scripts because I dont know what they're called. So if anyone could point me to a PHP or ASP script for one I'd be very greatful.

Thanks!

[sevster]

September 13th, 2006, 10:27 am

You can restrict relaying from only certain IP addresses to accomplish that same task.

September 13th, 2006, 10:47 am

Thanks for your advice sevster, but how am I going to know what IPs my potential clients will be using?

[sevster]

September 13th, 2006, 11:18 am

There is no need to find your potential clients IP addresses.

When your "sites" email you the data from the forms, you are being emailed from the site's IP address, not the users.

So you would have to restrict the email form to only relay emails coming from your site's IP address.

September 13th, 2006, 11:46 am

I'm sitting here scratching my head because I really dont understand how this is going to help me. The bots are using my form to submit the data, which is then emailed to me. So regardless of if a client or a bot submits the form, its still going to be emailed from that same IP.

So if there's something I'm misunderstanding in the above logic, please fill me in. But this fix just seems too simple to me.

September 13th, 2006, 6:48 pm

FettesPS wrote:

I didnt want to waste a lot of time writing one, and couldnt search for any scripts because I dont know what they're called. So if anyone could point me to a PHP or ASP script for one I'd be very greatful.

It called CAPTCHA.
Open source ASp Captcha : http://sourceforge.net/projects/asp-captcha

September 14th, 2006, 7:36 am

Awesome, thats exactly what I needed. Thanks dannybedor
And thanks to sevster too, even though I dont think your solution would have worked for my situation.