SMF 2 has xrumer and the bots beat
But good luck getting your money back 
For anyone who doesn't know what I am talking about, one of the robot activities is creating profiles on forums. These profiles will include a link back to a website. Sometimes no posting is done with the profile. The link back has a value all by itself. If no posts are made, technically that might not be spam, but it isn't pleasant for the forum owner.
Sometimes it is just a sleeper account that is used to post much later.
Usually there is a big fat ugly unpleasant post or 2 to go along with the profile.
At least 2 months ago when SMF 2 came out, you could add a question to the forum registration page. The captchas are all solved but the questions aren't. My first try was something like 'what is 2 + 3?' 1 or 2 bots (seemed like they were bots) a week would get past that one.
A bit of adjustment to the questions like 'type all the letters of the word five except the first and the last letter.' With questions like that, I don't believe a single bot has managed to sign up since. It's been like a vacation.
So I'm sure someone is working on this right now, but it's nice to have a pause. It has been so successful that if Wordpress can use this, the spam comments picture could change for the better.
Edit: I didn't post this here, it got moved here. Doesn't seem to me to be a good place for it, but not a big deal.
For anyone who doesn't know what I am talking about, one of the robot activities is creating profiles on forums. These profiles will include a link back to a website. Sometimes no posting is done with the profile. The link back has a value all by itself. If no posts are made, technically that might not be spam, but it isn't pleasant for the forum owner.
Sometimes it is just a sleeper account that is used to post much later.
Usually there is a big fat ugly unpleasant post or 2 to go along with the profile.
At least 2 months ago when SMF 2 came out, you could add a question to the forum registration page. The captchas are all solved but the questions aren't. My first try was something like 'what is 2 + 3?' 1 or 2 bots (seemed like they were bots) a week would get past that one.
A bit of adjustment to the questions like 'type all the letters of the word five except the first and the last letter.' With questions like that, I don't believe a single bot has managed to sign up since. It's been like a vacation.
So I'm sure someone is working on this right now, but it's nice to have a pause. It has been so successful that if Wordpress can use this, the spam comments picture could change for the better.
Edit: I didn't post this here, it got moved here. Doesn't seem to me to be a good place for it, but not a big deal.