Dandello wrote on Oct 5
th, 2014 at 5:52am:
And links to member profiles do appear for non-members in 2.4 - logout of a 2.4/2.5 forum, click on a last poster name and see what happens.
That's actually incorrect (
at least as I've referenced with the links to other 2.4 forums below). In our 2.4 forum as I pointed out, links to a member's profile produces an error message, even when you click on a last poster name. The appended error message that comes up in our 2.4 forum is as follows:
"Sorry, this service is for registered members only. However, membership is free, so please become a member by clicking Register on the menu above." For a quick reference, check out the following forums that are still using the 2.4 version (
randomly chosen):
http://www.theartofbooks.com/forum/YaBB.pl http://www.scurion.ch/cgi-bin/yabb24/YaBB.pl http://www.ephs1960.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl http://www.fnxbasic.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl ***********************************************
Dandello wrote on Oct 5
th, 2014 at 5:52am:
... auto-harvesters are looking at the sourcecode, not the page as rendered by a browser.
That's only a certain segment of auto-harvesters. Another segment of an auto-harvester is one that captures a web page, searches for email addresses, and then filters everything else out but those email addresses ... just one way to harvest that data.
Yet aother segment of an auto-harvester is one that employ scripts, which are written to perform all of the necessary steps that a human would otherwise perform while registering. Even someone like myself who isn't experienced at writing code can pretty easily write a script to register in a YaBB forum. First, the auto-harvester is loaded up to retrieve a forum's register page, and then keystrokes are recorded.
This all started back in the days of writing DOS programs to perform certain tasks, some of which I wrote myself back in the eighties, of which none of mine were malicious. The scripts I remember writing were automated
"how to" computer instructions for people who needed basic help to operate their computers. I also wrote simple programs. In practice as it was done back then, they'd insert a 5
1/4 inch floppy disk that I programmed to automatically start, and they'd be good to go.
But I digress.
Basically, the way automated registration in a forum is done is by recording key stokes that become a
form filler. I'm not giving away any secrets here, and I'm not being specific enough to cause any harm. As such,
"Form fillers are primarily designed for web browsers to fill in checkout pages and log users into their accounts." A forum's registration page is simply another way a form filler can be used to automate the process.
The end result for automated spam-bots is that they can register memberships in a forum (
not just in YaBB), and then post their spam using yet another bot for that. However, for years forums have been able to stop spam bots cold just as YaBB is able to do.