Sign-up process changed
Posted by Andrew Hodgkinson Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:20:00 GMT
The ROOL sign-up process through Hub has historically been simple and easy to use with low demand on web browsers so that RISC OS users running software of all vintages have a good chance of signing up. Unfortunately we’ve been forced to change this in response to increasing attacks from so-called “spambots”.
What are spambots?
Spambots are software engines which attempt to infiltrate sites and post adverts. Recently, Hub was attacked by a ’bot clever enough to automate signing up e-mail accounts with randomly generated user names, using those accounts to sign up with Hub and answering the confirmation e-mail message sent out by Hub in order to complete account activation. We ended up with literally hundreds of such fake accounts created in a matter of hours.
The “captcha”
To protect against this, something called a “captcha” has been used. This is an image which shows one or two words with deliberately oddly shaped or “dirty looking” letters that make it hard for computer-based optical character recognition to work, but still allow a human to read them. When you sign up with Hub, you will be presented with such a captcha and have to enter the words displayed. If you use a JavaScript browser like Firefox, you can easily ask for a different captcha in case you find one hard to read, or ask for an audio version to be read out.
With non-JavaScript browsers like NetSurf, you have to type in the requested words, click on an “I’m a human” button then copy the code it gives you into another text box. This is cumbersome but an unavoidable part of the fight against spam.
Older browsers
Unfortunately the mechanism used to fight against spambots means that older browsers like Fresco or Browse will not be able to complete sign-up – you will need to use another browser for that part of the process.
