NP_SpamGuardian

SP_SpamGuardian is a text based CAPTCHA alternative that ads a prompt to your comment form to anyone who isn't a logged in member (no need to prompt them) asking them to answer a simple question to prove they are human. A hidden filed with a “key” that is used during the submit process to lookup the answer and compare the answer given to the one in the question list. The key is a md5 hash of the rotating key + secrety key + question + answer. This means that even sites using the same questions and answers will still have unique keys preventing bots from learning the keys.

To keep bots on their toes you should have as big a list of questions as possible. In theory if a bot writer wanted to they could learn the questions and answers and eventually train the bot to look for the question and put in the right answer. However, if you have enough questions and keep them fresh then I doubt a spammer would go through the trouble to learn your questions. That's the key, even though they could learn the questions and answers they would have to do it for every single blog they find because each site will have it's own questions and answers.

• Unzip
• Upload to nucleus/plugins
• Install via nucleus admin (standard plugin install)
• Edit Plugin Options
• Edit nucleus/plugins/spamguardian/questions.txt to your liking

• Secret Key: A unique key for each site that is used to encrypt the question id to prevent bots from “learning” your questions
• Error Message: The message displayed when the answer is incorrect.
• questions.txt: Located in your nuclues/plugins/spamguardian folder. The questions are in the questions.txt file and are in the format of:

  question|answer

Questions and answers should be 1 per line.

• Suggest also using:
  • NP_Blacklist
  • NP_CommentControl

• None Known (yet)

• Add/Edit/Delete questions & answers in nucleus plugin admin
• Edit question template bit that gets added to comment form via nucleus plugin admin
• Add log for failed attempts
• Add hooks for other plugins to make use of

• .4 (4 March 2006)
  • [ADD] Rotating key to further secure question ids keeping bots from learning them. Now, in addition to the secret key, a new “rotating” key is generated after every question is answered.
• .3 (1 March 2006)
  • [ADD] Made answer “case insensative” and added trim() to prevent extra spaces at the beginning/end of answers.
  • [FIX] Support for sql table prefixes.
• .2 (31 March 2006)
  • [Changed] Changed the question / answer list from an internal array to an external file (questions.txt)
  • [ADD] Ability to edit “Secrety Key” and “Error Message”
• .1 (30 March 2006)
  • Initial Release.