Unwanted bot members

CaptainStarbuck

I installed v0.9.6 many months ago on a subdomain of my business site, just as a prototype and to get my feet wet with the software. (I know security issues require update to v1+) Even though this site has never been published and there are only 5 legitimate test members, once in a while I get a streak of new members that seem to be bots. They might leave a URL with a .cz domain, or a link to some foxtv dot com. The only way I've found to keep these bogus registrations out is to completely shutdown new registrations. What can be done to improve that situation?

Note, I'm not really using the software anymore but hoping that when it matures a bit more I can take a fresh look. This is more for info and to help anyone else. Deleting the subdomain would solve my problem but that's not cool. :)

Thanks!

lnxwalt

Yes, turning off registrations is the best way to stop spammers from signing up. Remember also that they search for certain text strings common to SN installations, so you might benefit by using robots.txt to block search engines from crawling your site (at least that part of it).

Also, if you keep your instance, you should at least install security updates. Depending on the severity, someone exploiting a security hole could affect more than just SN on your server.