4 ms·
"So I spent 10 minutes writing a little script that checks for mouse movement and clears a pre-populated field. If the field isn't empty, bot it is" Nice idea.
by fuzzix 14y ago
"So I spent 10 minutes writing a little script that checks for mouse movement and clears a pre-populated field. If the field isn't empty, bot it is"
Nice idea. I tend not to use the mouse a whole lot once the 'reply' link has been clicked, have you had any complaints of legitimate posts being lost?
I'm wondering if adding a check for key down/up events would mitigate this potential issue since a spam bot is not likely to generate those either.
- artursapek 14y agoI think he probably starts checking for the mouse movement as soon as the page loads.
- obituary_latte 14y agoExactly right, and there is a threshold set. Though it's not used when people try to post but rather when they try to register, I'd imagine it'd work similarly well on an "open" comment page. For a while at least.
- snogglethorpe 14y agoIt could also just put up a page that says "Because no mouse movement has been detected, there's a possibility you might be a bot; to show you're not, please move your mouse around a bit and then click <submit> again."
- obituary_latte 14y agoWell, I'm not checking when people are trying to post but when they try to register--sorry if I wasn't clear. The forum requires registration (and verification) before posting, so once they're registered there aren't any restrictions. And one of the benefits of this check is that there aren't any "human verifications" visible to the user. In fact, I could probably do away with the email validation too.