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#18141 Anti Spam Bad Words

Posted in ‘Admin Tools for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Latest post by nicholas on Tuesday, 19 November 2013 07:29 CST

user79996
By using Anti Spam words - it does not block a user to submit a form
For example - there was a spam coming from a particular email id & same name in over 50 of the form submissions

We tried putting in the email address and name separately in Anti Spam - but still that bot was not getting blocked by it and were able to submit form despite his email id and name was put in Anti Spam

Could you help in that pl

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
You have to enter words, not full names or email addresses. Words contain only alphanumeric characters. Alphanumeric means a-z, 0-9 and international characters such as Latin characters with diacritics (e.g. ł, ü, è, oø, ...), Greek, Cyrillic, Hiragana, Katakana, etc. If you put a space or any symbol including but not limited to at-sign, dot, comma, underscore and so on they are no longer words and will be silently ignored. Remember, the feature is called "Anti-spam Bad Words", not "Anti-spam Bad Phrases, Pieces of Text or Content in General".

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

user79996
Thanks Nicholas, appreciate your time in writing and explaining
I have even tried putting in phone number which was same in all bot entries

Have even tried offline by entering ten digit number - 9000000099
which was been put by bot in all entries. Even i was able to complete the form and by pass admin tool security exception despite it was mentioned in Admin tools WAF = Anti spam bad words

Am i doing something wrong above !!

For second - "Anti-spam Bad Phrases, Pieces of Text or Content in General".
I recommend as a registered user - if you found it apt to make anti spam bad phrase too as an option in one of your future version of Admin tools

thanks

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
The problem with anti-spam phrases is that it takes way too long to process them. The processing is based on regular expressions which are notoriously slow when you cross word boundaries. We could do a simple full text search on input variables, but it's equally slow and even more unreliable. Just to give you an idea, blocking "Stupid Bot" won't work if the typed name is "Stupid Bot" (I used a non-breaking space instead of regular space) or "Stupid Bot" (two spaces instead of one). The devil lies in the details.

Now, regarding your problem. It all depends on the form target, that means how your form works. If the form is submitted to a Joomla! component (therefore Admin Tools' plugin runs on form submission) we can block the request. If, however, the form is submitted to a bespoke script then Admin Tools' plugin doesn't run and we don't have a chance of blocking the request. Some form components and most custom coded forms choose the latter method. In this case using custom made .htaccess Rules is your only option. These are tricky to write, I know, that's what led me to implementing the Bad Words feature.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

user79996
Thanks for detailed reply.
With you for phrases, eventually you are the best judge to determine the usability of a feature

For the issue, in reference
. If, however, the form is submitted to a bespoke script then Admin Tools' plugin doesn't run and we don't have a chance of blocking the request


Is it possible that a plugin can be developed in which if the plugin can run on these independent forms, may be by adding a code so (forms which bypass by chossing the later method)

I hope it can really be useful to harness the full potential of this software

IP Blocking is great, but sometimes you have some bots / users who try to screw in system - but they end up using same name / same phone number / same word etc. Having it to run on these independent form as a restriction will be great

Look forward, if you feel it as a thing to be implemented in the forthcoming release edition

many thanks for you quick revert !!

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
> Is it possible that a plugin can be developed in which if the plugin can run on these independent forms, may be by adding a code so (forms which bypass by chossing the later method)

No. The explanation is a bit complicated and it takes a developer to understand it. Let me try rephrasing your request in a way that will help you understand immediately what is the problem: "Is it possible for a motorcycle to be developed in which if the road ends at the end of the cliff it can still keep on moving straight, maybe by adding wings, a rudder, a jet engine and a jet fuel tank (which the rider has to wear before mounting the motorcycle)". Yes, I could, but I don't think I should mainly for practical reasons. Instead of going through all that hassle, the developer can simply spent half an hour turning his bespoke script into a rudimentary Joomla! component.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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