Stop Indian Spammers on SMF 2.0 and Other Forums.
If you are a webmaster running an SMF or any other kind of forum, you will no doubt be inundated with signature and other link spammers from India that invade your site simply to abuse it.
These guys are paid $1 a day to invade sites like yours. Its what they do. However, there is a way to stop them in their tracks easily from your Admin panel.
Most of these guys are connecting through a network called “Airtel” or “Kolkata” in India.
On version 2.0 SMF forum, go to Admin>Ban List>Add New ban
In that window, you will see a list of options. Tick “Ban on Hostname” and enter *vsnl.net.in in there (the asterix is important). Then click “Add”.
Next, go to create another new ban.
In that window, you will see a list of options. Tick “Ban on Hostname” and enter *airtel.in in there (the asterix is important). Then click “Add”.
That’s it! Nobody accessing your site from either of those two host names will be able to make an account. No Indian spam. Bye Bye Gupta!
Nice try, however they are smart enough to use different hosts and.or proxy servers.
So what have you got to know to actually stop them ?
1. Stopping a host is great when you do not count on traffic from that host. If you might have people from India visiting you, its going to look very ood to them to be banned.
2. By sites like DNSTOOLS you can fing the range of the IP that has spammmed you. Then by adding a range ban in SMF, you can block that range.
Apart from some British companies, most hosts with full dynamic IP offer a maximum of 3 routes. This means a single evader can ban evade only three times before having to use proxy servers.
When putting in a ban, always weight that by banning a single route (213.30.*.*) you are blocking 65.000 possible connections.
Another one I came across to ban is *.wateen.net a Pakistani provider.
@ Sauron, I think your method is too advanced for many forum Admins. Our sites do not rely (or particularly want) any traffic from the 3rd world, so blocking any host from China, India, Pakistan etc., suits our purposes just fine.
For sure, a few will slip by with proxies or by obscuring their hostname, but I have found this method has reduced the manual spam considerably on all our SMF forums almost overnight.