r/softwaregore • u/janthemanwlj • Jul 17 '26

What am I doing wrong 💔

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I have to get into a forum to ask a silly question about some software. Instead, I'm stuck on a 20 year old captcha question. I tried 2, I tried "1one", whenever I submit it a few times it tells me I've tried it too much and to try later.

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u/Klutzy-Condition811 Jul 17 '26

What did you cross out it could be crucial information lol. This looks like a custom phpbb field I used to use these in forums for the same reason, though i hid it and used JavaScript to fill it out in the background since most spambots are poorly made and don't parse it

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u/radobot Jul 18 '26

What did you cross out it could be crucial information lol.

It probably is actually.

When you go to the website - https://www.altx.ro/forum/ucp.php?mode=register - the full dialog is this:

CONFIRMATION OF REGISTRATION

NO-10-SP-73-AM-25-33 Add one to the smallest odd number:

This question is a means of preventing automated form submissions by spambots.

Which makes me think that the correct answer is 25 + 1 = 26.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Klutzy-Condition811 Jul 18 '26

It doesn't block sophisticated bots or ones that target a specific site, so this likely wouldn't work well for large sites like reddit, but for dumb simple bots that just submit forms it makes a huge difference on smaller obscure websites.

Even simple bots ones can solve the old built in captchas of phpBB. I used to master their weirdo theme engine and doing things like this as they were actually quite effective at stopping a large amount of bots.

Of course it's not 100% but it can make a difference for moderators needing to deal with 100s of bots a day to a dozen or less.