What is BotShield?
A WordPress plugin attempts to defend contact forms against bots and spammers.
BotShield
This plugin validates the data from the request for the page. Headers, User-Agent, and IP Address. Those are checked for bot like attributes. The IP is checked against DNS-RBLs. The IP is given a score and the system reacts differently depending on the score. IP’s are logged and that is also use for scoring. If the same IP is hitting a protected page to often, the score increases.
BotShield is Not
This plugin does not stop all bots. AI bots, indexers, crawler, spiders, etc are not actively blocked. Bad and poorly written spambots are the target for defense.
Protected Pages
Protection is page content level. So the page content will not render in the HTML until it passes all tests with a score that allows it. This works to prevent spambots from scraping the form HTML and using that to try to submit spam without having to visit the form page again. Protection is enabled per page.
Disclaimer
There is no guarantee that a spammer or spambot submission will occasionally make past all defenses. This plugin is an attempt to make it hard for spambots and spammers to abuse your forms. With minimal interference of real humans using your forms for their intended purpose. Spambots are getting more and more sophisticated, thanks to AI. This plugin will evolve with the changes and increased sophistication of spambots.
DNS-RBL
DNS based Real Time Blocklists. Like SpamHaus, SpamCop, and SORBS.
The Future
IP Reputation Database. If this plugin is popular enough, the intention is to start aggregating IP scores across many sites. This will allow spotting patterns of spambots trying to spam forms and allow putting IP’s into hard block status. A complete IP reputation system can then be developed and provided to developers of anti-spam and anti-bot systems.klists. Like SpamHaus, SpamCop, and SORBS.
