Forum Spambot Countermeasures
Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2025 10:49 pm
I have enabled reCAPTCHA v3 on forums to help prevent registration and posting activities by spambots. This version of reCAPTCHA is more capable of stopping bots than simple challenge-response of v2 and Q&A in a world where LLMs can very easily solve those puzzles.
This should remain mostly invisible to human users. I've set the spambot thresholds to a balanced value so there are hopefully very few false positives. But please note the way reCAPTCHA v3 works is largely a black box powered by Google. You may still see a challenge at some point such as a checkbox or image identification when posting or replying.
Please leave any feedback in this topic. I will attempt to fine-tune the countermeasure thresholds if required.
One final note - the free version of reCAPTCHA provides 10000 requests per month. Depending on load generated by these forums, I may have to switch to a paid model to continue using the service or find an alternative model suitable for PHPBB. It largely depends on the effectiveness of the change.
This should remain mostly invisible to human users. I've set the spambot thresholds to a balanced value so there are hopefully very few false positives. But please note the way reCAPTCHA v3 works is largely a black box powered by Google. You may still see a challenge at some point such as a checkbox or image identification when posting or replying.
Please leave any feedback in this topic. I will attempt to fine-tune the countermeasure thresholds if required.
One final note - the free version of reCAPTCHA provides 10000 requests per month. Depending on load generated by these forums, I may have to switch to a paid model to continue using the service or find an alternative model suitable for PHPBB. It largely depends on the effectiveness of the change.