What we do behind the scenes is look up every single IP address and compare it to stopforumspam.com's database. I am in high hopes that Rick will include the ability to do so automatically in Version 8. I have no idea if vB does this or not.
We also take the time to report spammers to their ISP and Hosting service. We block the IP address and in some cases, the IP range if we do not get cooperation from those places. Then, going a step farther, we look up what the spammer is selling.
In the latest case, it was an email address harvesting site that is Marriage-License.com. We then reported that site to its own web hosting location.
I was active in the early days of Usenet and continued until its demise at the hands of spammers. The reason for the demise of Usenet was spamming and spamming existed because institutions, such as Internet Service Providers and those who hosted the backbone of Usenet provision did little or nothing in most cases to stop spam.
In many ways, forums are simply an interaction scheme much like many parts of Usenet. Since the invention of spamming by those two Lawyers in Arizona, there has been war between spammers and those who would maintain the integrity of their forums or Usenet group.
Captcha is one of the means for fighting spam. Captcha does not work if a low cost human is hired, for example from India, where our own latest spamming has originated to defeat Captcha. Thus we must fall back on sites such as stopforumspam.com to help us in the fight.
If a given piece of forum software can plug into the database, just one forum so backstopped, can report a spam IP address to the contol site and thereafter, all attempts to use that IP address or address range is thereby defeated by everyone who uses that forum software and updates their version.
Works for me.
Larry
www.marriageadvocates.com
