Blackhole for Bad Bots - proposing this as a default install

[robi]

@d19dotca I hear you.. tough but still worth doing the correlation for other insights.

The other thing you can look into is post comment/form filtering. Perhaps add your own question to solve that is accepted either way, but later helps tell you if you're dealing with a bot or human.

From there there may be a few other things to try

[d19dotca]

@robi Actually you lead me onto a great idea. I went and did some RBL checks on those IP addresses I see sending the forms, and sure enough most of the recent ones are in the Spamhaus XBL list. Now to see if I can somehow get that data into Cloudron as a large listing or something, may be a huge help in reducing spam / bots to the websites.

[jimcavoli]

@d19dotca Now that's a good thought!

[marcusquinn]

@d19dotca not had any spam issues TBH, so I think so. Like I say, we have the pro version but not harm in trying the free.

[robi]

@d19dotca
Nice work, that's a great start - existing known spammers.

Now they just need to be in the right format list.

It would help to make a new thread with your findings and share the list.

[jdaviescoates]

@d19dotca I always install Wordfence which I really like. You could also try https://wordpress.org/plugins/goodbye-captcha/

The idea of bringing in spam IP lists sounds like a good plan too.

[robi]

@jdaviescoates Looking at WP Bruiser I can't tell what it does.. there's a lot of marketing around it but it also seems like a lot of cloak and dagger.

It would be nice to know how it works.

[marcusquinn]

@robi We use WP Bruiser with a bunch of add-on licences, generally we check everything for performance and code quality before committing to a choice, so it was a while back now but I don't recall any issues since.

[robi]

@marcusquinn that's nice. do you know what it does to stop bots?

[marcusquinn]

@robi I know we don't have a bot problem

Quick look at the reports on one website would suggest so:

[robi]

@marcusquinn it's ok to say you don't know how it works too

[marcusquinn]

@robi I truly don't care how it works. I care about how things work that no-one else has solved

[jdaviescoates]

@robi I've no idea how it works either!