[Web4lib] anti-spam email adress

[Randy Norwood]

Some of my library's web forms are starting to get spammed. I didn't want to
use a captcha, so on a few of the most-spammed forms, I used a technique
I've seen on some blogs: the user must correctly answer "What color is an
orange?" The processing script checks that field's value. If it's anything
but "orange," the message is discarded. It's sort of amusing to see what the
spambots do with that field. Some leave it blank; most fill it in with a
name, "NA", etc.

So far it's worked well, although I'm starting to see some spam slipping
through. The only thing I can guess is that they are using some DHTML/DOM
tricks to change the name of the field. I probably need to modify the script
to check for the existence of all fields (with their original names) in a
particular form.

Rnady N.

On 9/14/06 12:02 PM, "Thomas Dowling" <tdowling at ohiolink.edu> wrote:

> "Hear hear!" to everything Bill Denton said, plus which:
> 
> On 9/14/2006 12:52 PM, William Denton wrote:
>> 
>> Online contact forms are one way to hide from spammers...
> 
> ...until you start getting form submission spam.  Our contact form
> routinely gets things like "Question or comment: CLICK HERE TO WIN
> HERBAL V1AGRA AT OUR ONLINE CASINO!!!!!"
> 

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Randy Norwood
Web  Manager
Texas Tech University Libraries
Office: 806-742-2238  x233
Support Line: 806-742-2220
Fax: 806-742-8669
E-mail: randy.norwood at ttu.edu