Suggestion for spammer signup control

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Maybe this isn’t a good idea for everyone, but here, almost all the spam signups are something like this: tanya906828. Normal real people don’t use a name followed by 4,5 or 6 numbers. Most don’t bother with numbers at all. Could there be a plugin that will allow me to foil signups that contain more than a selected number of numbers in the name?

I get 30-40 a day of these rascals, and would be ecstatic if they could be prevented. It would be fun to inform them that their name has already been taken so they don’t catch on so fast to the fact that it was blocked from signup.

  • drmike
    • DEV MAN’s Mascot

    Normal real people don’t use a name followed by 4,5 or 6 numbers.

    Both Yahoo and Hotmail now default to addresses like that. They’ve been around for too long now for new registers on their service not to get an addresses without such a number.

    edit: We also have business clients where their email address pattern falls to first name initial – full last name – five digit office phone extension. Something to do with a requirement with their voicemail system.

    reedit: I believe ICQ email addresses also fall into that pattern as well.

  • andrea_r
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    “It would be fun to inform them that their name has already been taken so they don’t catch on so fast to the fact that it was blocked from signup. “

    If it’s automated – which most are – they won’t see that message.

  • drmike
    • DEV MAN’s Mascot

    …Unless it’s looking for a result code for some reason. You’re probably right though.

    We batted this around on my forums. Someone pointed out that we have a [insertname]8675309 blogger on a couple of them. :slight_smile:

    edit: And even a [insertname]6060842 on one but you young people today probably wouldn’t get that one.

  • uncobeth
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    I went ahead and edited the code on healthblogs.org to disallow numbers in the username, and it’s stopped the avalanche of signups for now. I posted something

    in another thread just a minute ago about blocking certain user agents, which, for me, isn’t working with the .htaccess.