Any defense against these spamBots?

[DrPaul]

Man, we are really under attack by these pornBots.  Is there any defense against them?  

In order to post, you must be a member, right?  I guess, anything you change for membership wouldn't affect existing members, but maybe you could put some kind of hurdle in place for new membership which the spamBots couldn't handle.

I'm sorry that you (may) have to deal with this problem.  

[DataAngel]

I have thought of ways... using a mail server to send the registration email would stop it. But I don't have an SMTP server that works. I used to have one through an older email account. Also I am sure I could use a different forum and it would be easy to fix. However the reason this has not occurred is the lack of ability to move over all the posts etc.

[ishashobar]

why don't you have one of those "type the text you see in the image" things? its worth a try

[DataAngel]

Why because the forum doesnt support it and its not part of this forum. To do so I would need to use a different forum which would lose all posts here...

[DrPaul]

You mention that using a mail server to send the registration would work but you don't have an SMTP server that works.  

I don't know what the rate of new member registrations would be, but I wouldn't expect 'legitimate' registrations to be very frequent.  If that is the case, you could do email registration manually.  Maybe you could setup a 2nd account on the server you're doing you regualr email with.  Most providers allow you to have several email accounts on one main account.  Or, you could sign up from one of those free webmail accounts and use that to send the registration.  

I realize that is an extra burden for you to have to register people manually, but how often would that be?  And wouldn't it be easier than having to cleanup several porn posts every day?

[DataAngel]

Hmm... well manually is fine, its knowing who is REAL and who is FAKE. I am not certain people would bother to email me asking to register the account. I may just make the switch to a PHP forum and just leave this forum up for reading only.