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Quick CAPTCHA method

 
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RickP

 

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From: Kent, U.K.
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Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/1/2008 18:48:09   
I'm fed up with form spam at the present (and ever!). I like to use a nice, reusable PHP script for a simple contact form on numerous sites; quick and simple without any great installations and tutorials. Is there a quick and easy method for adding CAPTCHA protection without numerous uploads, installations and general palaver?

I would have thought that perhaps there are some third party services offering some way whereby one can add the CAPTCHA as an include or whatever from their server and they do the rest. I'd gladly pay a few quid to save the hassle of sorting it all on each site. Does such a service exist? Or what is the quickest, simplest method for adding CAPTCHA or other spambot protection?


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Larry M.

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/1/2008 18:56:07   
Look at http://www.spamarrest.com/

I've had very favorable experience on an individual (multiple email box) basis but I see they have an Enterpirse Plan which may suit your needs.

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(in reply to RickP)
Tailslide

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/2/2008 2:04:34   
Captcha should be avoided - it's generally inaccessible even to fully "able" people. I fail them regularly and there's not a lot wrong with my eyesight!

The most reliable, accessible and secure form I've come across is this one: http://green-beast.com/gbcf-v3/

It uses questions and a few other little traps to stop spam.

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BobbyDouglas

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/2/2008 2:16:59   
I wrote a little tutorial on how to use jcap, see Eliminate Spam Bots - you can test it out here: http://www.rp-s.com/Contact-RPS/Contact-Form/

The images are very easy to read, unlike a lot of other captcha programs. Another trick I've used with these forms, is javascript to display the submit button and form tag. I haven't received a single piece of spam since doing this via that form.

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RickP

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/2/2008 6:44:04   
Thanks for all the various options and points of view. The system Larry mentions is something I've used in the form of 'BoxTrapper'. It seemed to work well but I wonder if it can be off-putting to potential new customers [?]. Will examine these further options - thanks. But I'm still keen to know if there are any ten second solutions (well, maybe 5 minutes) for addinga captcha or similar to existing forms - I have about 20 that need updating in some managable way.

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Larry M.

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/2/2008 7:12:22   
Forgot to mention that the OutFront PM uses a form of CAPTCHA that's very straightforward. Check with Spooky or Tom for particulars if you're interested.

As to "off-putting", I suggest the CAPTCHA approach may pose a minor inconvenience but I doubt it would prove a barrier to business since the majority of today's electronic visitors appreciate the necessity for email integrity.

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RickP

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/2/2008 7:23:28   
quote:

As to "off-putting", I suggest the CAPTCHA approach may pose a minor inconvenience but I doubt it would prove a barrier to business since the majority of today's electronic visitors appreciate the necessity for email integrity.


I agree Larry - my comment was about the 'BoxTrapper' system being potentially off-putting - it sends an email to all email senders asking them to verify before the email is then delivered to its destination.

Thanks again

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jaybee

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/2/2008 10:39:16   
Rick use the form Tailslide gave you. I use it for all my sites now and it's spam free. Very easy install as well and if you get any problems Mike will help you out.

http://green-beast.com/gbcf-v3/

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BobbyDouglas

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/2/2008 10:58:12   
That javascript one I posted takes probably 2 minutes. You upload files, add a single line to your form tag, and then put a piece of html code somewhere inside the form.

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jaybee

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/2/2008 13:38:38   
quote:

That javascript one I posted takes probably 2 minutes.


.... doesn't work with js turned off and isn't readable for those with sight problems which, as Rick is building sites in the UK makes it a problem as far as the DDA is concerned.

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BobbyDouglas

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/2/2008 16:11:03   
quote:

doesn't work with js turned off

- The forms can still be submitted without javascript (not the one I have though because I modified it), but most spam bots have javascript enabled. The forms on my site use an additional method for people who try to get around anti-spam stuff, by turning JS off.

He's asking for a CAPTCHA method. CAPTCHAs are image based, you need to be able to see the image in order for them to work. The *easiest* CAPTCHA implementation, is JCap. There are other things you can do, but they don't use the CAPTCHA technology.

edited for clarity

< Message edited by BobbyDouglas -- 7/2/2008 17:16:45 >


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RickP

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/2/2008 18:15:38   
Just looking at Bobby's solution at present but I can't seem to get it to work...

In your example code you give:
<form method="post" action=""   name="contact" onsubmit="return jcap();">


Now the form I use always has a destination in the 'action'

e.g.
<form name="otwnwebform" method="post" action="thanks.php" onsubmit="return jcap();">


Without the action page (which contains all of the form processign PHP) I can't see any way to get the form to work. When I follow the instructions my form works every time regardless of a correct captcha insertion or not.

Any further advice?

(P.S. Will look into the Jaybee/Tailslide method for future forms but currently needa quick-fix for existing ones. )



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BobbyDouglas

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/2/2008 18:35:03   
If you could link me to the page or post the full code I can take a look. It should be as simple as uploading the files and making a minor change to your HTML form.

One possibility is that you may not be using the default directory for the jcap files. Open up jcap.js and make sure
quote:

var imgdir = "cimg/";
is specified correctly.

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RickP

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/3/2008 2:42:03   
Bobby, All files are in same directory, including the form page, action page and all files supplied for the captcha. The images show up fine but the form just fires off regardless of what might be entered in the captcha field. I am testing on this site

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BobbyDouglas

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/3/2008 2:56:39   
I just took your code, and changed the input button to a submit button, and it works.

Remove

<input type="button" value="Send" name="B1" onclick="javascript:validateForm()">


Replace with

<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit">


Let me know if that works for you. Spammers automatically fill anything that says "mail" "e" or anything relating to an e-mail address, with a legal, legit, address. Your javascript verification of the e-mail isn't too helpful (it checks if an @ sign was entered), however, the one that confirms that the two e-mails entered are the same, is helpful.

Try to get it working without that extra validation for now.

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BobbyDouglas

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/3/2008 3:02:37   
Since the form will submit if you (or the spammer) has javascript disabled, I have one neat trick that takes care of that. It's a bit harder to implement, but the idea behind it has put all spam to rest with my contact forms (without relying on ANY server side functions/code :)).

The idea behind this is that you want to use javascript to display the <form> and <intput type="submit" ... button. Using document.write, you simply insert the javascript include into the area to display the form tag or the button, and a spammer is unable to tell that you even have a form on the page!

I've been meaning to write up a nice tutorial on this trick, so if it is something you want to do, then I'll go ahead and write it up sooner rather than later :)

Javascript will be REQUIRED to submit the form, so if you think you have legit visitors coming to your website with javascript turned off, then they will not be able to see the form. I put up a simple noscript message that says to give us a call if you don't have javascript enabled.

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RickP

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/3/2008 5:06:34   


Thanks for your help Bobby - it works fine now.

quote:

Try to get it working without that extra validation for now.


Are you saying I should just remove the "@" verification part or all of the js validaion for some reason? My existing js validation seems to work happily with the captcha validator.

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BobbyDouglas

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/3/2008 11:11:22   
I figured the validation might be conflicting with it too, sounds like it works though. The @ verification isn't going to help with spam bots, since 99% of the bots actually know when to input an e-mail address.

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RickP

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 7/3/2008 13:36:20   
Bobby, thanks again for all your help with this.It has provided what I needed for the time being - a quick to implement system [which was very easy to integrate], which I hope will go a long way to sorting the problem for now.

Re your tutorial on further developments of this theme, I'd be interested to see what other advantages there would be. Perhaps you could post on this thread when you have the information ready.

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BobbyDouglas

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 3/3/2009 0:56:17   
I received an e-mail regarding my reference of additional anti-spam measures for the form and submit tags. Here's some additional details if you want to implement this:

Include the following javascript:
<!--
function displayForm( type, formName ) {
	if(type=="form"){document.write('<form method="post" name="' + formName + '" action="" id="' + formName + '" onsubmit="return jcap();">');}
	if(type=="submit"){document.write('<input type="image" class="submit" value="Submit" src="/images/submit.gif" border="0" width="67" height="19" alt="Submit" name="image">');}
}
//-->


Display the form tag:
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">displayForm("form","ContactForm");</script>
<noscript><p>Please <a href="http://www.domain.com/contact.php">call us</a> or enable javascript to submit the online form.</p></noscript>


Display the submit button:
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">displayForm("submit");</script>


If you are not using Jcap, you need to remove onsubmit="return jcap();" from the above code.

If you plan to use this for multiple forms on the same page, you can change ContactForm inside of
displayForm("form","ContactForm");


So if one form is named Contact, and another form is named Comments, you can use displayForm("form","Contact"); for the first and displayForm("form","Comments"); for the second form.

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MCD

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 3/3/2009 6:11:36   

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tailslide

Captcha should be avoided - it's generally inaccessible even to fully "able" people. I fail them regularly and there's not a lot wrong with my eyesight!


Exactly Tailslide. I get so irritated trying to figure out whether that is a "U" or a "V" and is it in uppercase or lowercase.


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Tailslide

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 3/3/2009 6:19:17   
Same here. I find a question much less worrying!

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BobbyDouglas

 

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RE: Quick CAPTCHA method - 3/3/2009 10:15:42   
You can browse the set of images that JCap provides and see if it is easy enough to read.

vBulletin probably has the worst Captcha of all. I get them wrong 20% of the time. Luckily the ones in JCap are really easy.

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