Re:Ask HN: reCaptcha isn't stopping spam, what should I do?
by Prefinem on Wednesday August 28, 2013 @08:27PM
(#6293559)
That is a great idea... much simpler than I had imagined. I will implement this tomorrow to base off results from today
Re:Ask HN: reCaptcha isn't stopping spam, what should I do?
by qu4z-2 on Thursday August 29, 2013 @12:20AM
(#6294243)
They're both good ideas, but bear in mind that the keydown detection may trigger under other conditions (eg I use a plugin to let me edit text fields in external vim. People pasting quotes/urls could also be odd keystroke numbers)
Of course, this is not a long term perfect solution against motivated adversaries, but it's a way to see how the current spammers work.
Another: Add a keydown handler to your message-textarea and log (to a hidden form field) how many key presses are being used per post. If the spam software is setting the content field programmatically, you then know how to detect them.