I have the application process enabled for people to join my instance, and I’ve gotten about 20 bots trying to join today when I had nobody trying to join for 5 days. I can tell because they are generic messages and I put a question in asking what 2+3 is and none of them have answered it at all, they just have a generic message.
Be careful out there, for all you small instance admins.
Welcome to the Bot Elimination Business! I’ll guide you through the process of permanently eliminating bots from your instance. Let’s get started:
Step 1: Strengthen Instance Security
Implement robust anti-bot measures such as CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA, or similar technologies during the registration process. These tools help verify that users are human and not automated bots.
Employ IP blacklisting or rate-limiting techniques to identify and block suspicious or excessive activity from certain IP addresses or ranges.
Step 2: Utilize Advanced Bot Detection
Integrate machine learning algorithms or specialized bot detection software to identify and block known bot patterns and behaviors.
Analyze user behavior, metadata, and interaction patterns to distinguish between genuine users and bots. Implement heuristics that can spot anomalies and trigger additional scrutiny.
Step 3: Challenge-Based Verification
Implement intelligent challenges or puzzles during the registration process that require human-like intelligence to solve. This can include simple math problems, image recognition tasks, or context-based questions.
Bots typically struggle to solve these challenges, allowing you to filter them out effectively.
Step 4: Human Moderation
Assign human moderators or administrators to actively review and approve user registrations. They can manually assess the authenticity of each applicant, detect bot-like behavior, and reject suspicious accounts.
Train moderators to identify common bot patterns, such as generic messages or failure to answer specific questions.
Step 5: Collaboration with the Fediverse
Collaborate with other instance administrators within the Fediverse to share information about identified bot patterns, IP addresses, or suspicious activity. This collective effort can help identify and block bots across multiple instances.
Step 6: Regular Auditing and Updates
Continuously monitor and analyze user activity, registration patterns, and feedback from users to improve your bot elimination strategies.
Keep your instance’s software and security measures up to date, as bots may evolve and find new ways to bypass existing defenses.
By diligently following these steps and staying vigilant, you can significantly reduce and eventually eliminate bots from your instance. Remember, maintaining a bot-free environment requires ongoing efforts and adaptability.
Wishing you success in your bot elimination endeavors!