CODEWITHSUNDEEP
djangoapache
Ben ODay
Ben ODay

Reputation: 21015

Django app spam prevention

we have a Django web application running on Ubuntu/Apache. Lately, we've had a lot of issues with high volume spamming (comments, registrations, user contributed content, etc.).

We have CSRF security in place, but am wondering what steps others have taken to curb this (ip table restrictions, Apache modules, captchas, etc)?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 5784

Answers (4)

Paolo
Paolo

Reputation: 21116

In addition to what other posters already written, you can use akismet or mollom services. For both exist Python libraries on pypi, respectively akismet and PyMollom. You can see how they get integrated in a Django project here (akismet example) and here (mollom example).

If you instead don't want to rely on external services consider to use a captcha application for Django. Personally I used Django Simple Captcha and was happy with it, it's very customizable and easy to install. It also supports audio captcha. This bitbucket repo contains a simple Django project showing how to captcha protect a classic contact form using Django Simple Captcha.

Also I'm not sure that resorting to IP tables is the best way to prevent spam on your site, at least if you don't have to block usually annoying IP addresses.

Upvotes: 3

Brandon Taylor
Brandon Taylor

Reputation: 34583

You might have a look at django-simple-math-captcha as an alternative to a text-based captcha. It's very simple to integrate and doesn't rely on any 3rd party systems.

Upvotes: 1

dm03514
dm03514

Reputation: 55972

I believe these issues are at the root design issues. Having a clear policy of who is allowed to post can annonymous users post. Perhaps only allow registered users to post. Or have a set of permissions regarding who is allowed to post where.

Captchas are extremely easy way to weed out spamming. http://www.google.com/recaptcha Recaptcha literally only takes a couple minutes to integrate, and is extremely effective.

Upvotes: 0

Paulo Scardine
Paulo Scardine

Reputation: 77339

Django CSRF protection is meant to protect your forms from cross-site request forgery, not from SPAM.

CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) will protect you from automated SPAM.

For human generated SPAM you can use a moderation system.

Upvotes: 3

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