[aprssig] Re: Wiki: Ok. I give up.

[Scott Miller]

I can add the graphical captcha module - anyone know if that's been 
broken?  I don't want to discourage people from contributing by making 
them go through a validation process, but if that's what it takes, then 
it can be done.

Scott
N1VG

Tom Russo wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 13, 2007 at 10:44:03PM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <sparkfel at qwest.net> flavor, containing:
>>  At 02:54 PM 8/13/2007, Scott Miller wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I've restricted anonymous edits, and installed a simple captcha system.  If 
>>> that proves inadequate there are some other measures that can be 
>>> implemented - MediaWiki has plenty of extensions and tweaks available.
>>
>>
>>  It is my understanding that CAPTCHA has been/can be bypassed.  Dunno how, 
>>  but I heard it on the radio a few weeks back.   Radio being AM Talk, not 
>>  Ham.
> 
> I'm reasonably certain that the particular captcha in use on this wiki will
> be inadequate, especially if it's already a well-known MediaWiki module.
> It is something that a program could easily defeat, and most of the spamming
> that's been happening is scripted so I would expect it won't be long before
> the new wiki is overwhelmed with spam, too.
> 
> It would be much more effective to make registration require an email 
> confirmation, *and* implement a permissions system that restricts edits to
> users in specific groups (both simple things in MediaWiki).  The hard part
> of that is having a sysop that is willing to serve as the contact point to
> modify permissions of new users on request.
> 
> The Xastir wiki became unusable briefly before we implemented those two 
> features, and has been unmolested since we did.  Chuck Byam, the sysadmin,
> set Curt and me up as alternate sysops, and we can add or remove users'
> edit permissions as needed.  I think a similar set-up should be in place on
> the APRS wiki.  This captcha won't hold us for long.
>