Bizarre

[Brian McIntosh]

On my website I have a contact form that people can fill in to ask questions. This morning I check my email and one of the messages was this:

zwciojnlrpm has sent you feedback via the contact form of your website:
lMj7Sj <a href=\"http://fiwjfiyuobkt.com/\">fiwjfiyuobkt</a>, cixryotwkbdo, [link=http://mbjoussjbydz.com/]mbjoussjbydz[/link], http://kpbghyekyxsh.com/

Why would someone go to all the trouble to post this crap.

Am I missing something??

 

[Former Member 1]

On my website I have a contact form that people can fill in to ask questions. This morning I check my email and one of the messages was this:

zwciojnlrpm has sent you feedback via the contact form of your website:
lMj7Sj <a href=\"http://fiwjfiyuobkt.com/\">fiwjfiyuobkt</a>, cixryotwkbdo, [link=http://mbjoussjbydz.com/]mbjoussjbydz[/link], http://kpbghyekyxsh.com/

Why would someone go to all the trouble to post this crap.

Am I missing something??

There are individuals who seem to enjoy wasting other people's time. I have a simple email address up on my site. And often get 'garbage' messages that seem to serve no purpose.

...That and folk 'phoning me up asking if I do weddings!

 

[Brian McIntosh]

Oh well, something new learned I suppose.

 

[stugster]

Brian,

It's most likely an automated bot that's filling it in. We can install a sexy "captcha" form on it to prevent these bots from doing it

 

[Brian McIntosh]

Is the code generator that's there not good enough then?

 

[stugster]

Oh... you already have one

These bots get cleverererer all the time, and some of them have taken a liking to viewing the image and then parsing it through an optical recognition system (yes, all just to send you links about Viagra!).

Maybe we should beef it up a bit - or, if there's not loads coming through, just leave it as is.

 

[Brian McIntosh]

There's not a lot coming through. Leave it as is just now and, if things get out of hand we can maybe change it for something a bit more robust.

 

[TomB]

not just any captcha but a sexy captcha

the way i tackle them on my sites is to have a hidden form field call nospam then i set my processing script to not process if that field is completed.

I use css to hide the section, and put a caption like:
"for spam control only, please do not complete or your message will not be sent"

These naughty spam bots tend to fill in every field in the form before submitting.

Works quite well.

Or another thing you can do is after they click submit is ask them to confirm the details and press submit again, so a screen displaying what they have entered.

Cuts out most spam, unless you get a very clever spam bot.

T

 

[stugster]

Good idea tom!

One way the forums prevent automated bots is to ask a question that only a human can answer.

For example, when registering here, the forums ask you "How many G's are in Glasgow?"

 

[Brian McIntosh]

Just had another one came through. Not panicking yet though.

 

[stugster]

Brian,

We'll sort that problem when we update your site for Invernesky.

 

[Brian McIntosh]

Cheers Stu. It's not desperate just annoying.

 

[stugster]

Congratulations Brian,

You just made post number 10,000 on the forums

 

[Brian McIntosh]

OOh, whats my prize? Pity it was such an inane one eh?

 

[peteark]

The best way around these typeof problems is to se up a system where the submitter has to click a link on their email before being information is forwarded to yourself or data added to a website.