[pmwiki-users] PmWiki & Spambots Redux: Another Idea

[George De Bruin]

I was over looking at a certain blog package when I found a plugin that 
implements a different "captcha" idea (personally, I like thinking of 
this as more of a "caughtya" idea...:):

(1) add another field to the edit form with a default value
(2) Hide the field using css

If the "hidden field" gets modified, it's most likely a bot, so reject 
the submission.

If, perchance someone comes in with a non-css enabled browser there are 
two things that can be done: (a) place the field in a non-obvious place 
so the user isn't likely to modify it, (b) make the default value 
indicate that the field doesn't need to be changed.

I thought of one additional idea: psuedo-randomizing the default value 
of the field.  If the value is generated from a list of values (strings) 
it's less likely that a bot will recognize the value.

Personally, this might be a more graceful concept to implement, and 
others can easily handle in their legitimate scripts...

Any thoughts?

// George


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