Friday Search Roundup

Anti Spamming phpBB spam registrations

Some Anti Spamming techniques to deal with bad registrations on phpBB forums.

• Totally disable (remove from template) field to enter the website (thats the major attraction for spammers). Made sure that the SQL query which inserts/updates user record (registration/profile update) inserts null/space in website field.
• All membership registrations are manually reviewed. (email addresses with .ru deleted without looking further)
• In all SQL queries which fetch user lists, stats for members added clause “user_active <> 0″. So that only active users are displayed.
• CAPCHA is must.

Friday Search Roundup

Google Trends thinks I am virus or spyware

Google Trends purred out this nasty message when I was trying it out with whatever keyword popped in my mind. Its funny to see how google trends fails to figure out simple thing like real user vs automated request.

We’re sorry…
… but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.

We’ll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we’ll see you again on Google.

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Friday Search Roundup

New PC