As you know I have been working on upgrading the site, features, and security.

Here is what I've done today:
Added Forum Firewall
Guests will have to enter verification to search
All Member info, stats and everything else in info center hidden to guests
Removed the Classified listings from the viewable forum. Still there under Classified tab at the top of the page. (Some user info was still showing there to guests)
Members with less than 5 posts will have to verify to post. Just an extra step to assure they aren't a bot.

One large change (behind the scenes) to make tomorrow. I have so many settings in the admin panel now it will take me months to figure it all out. 

So far I have seen the bot error codes drop to almost nothing.  Hopefully after tomorrow it will be 0

All of these changes have been to protect the forum from the current/future attacks and member information.

My ears have been ringing?  Now I know why!

Forgot to mention you may see an error page or something requiring human input. Some of the software will do that if something about your computer or IP triggers something. Its just to make sure you aren't a bot or fake poster.

Just did a quick Google and found this: http://netsecurity.about.com/od/frequentlyaskedquestions/qt/pr_bot.htm Does an OK job of describing bots.

They can affect your computer.......or attack a website. Probably both? There are also bots that do other things like "scrape" a site to get information, articles, etc. which are used or posted other places.

As a side note........I just added "Hide Avatar". Now guest can't see anything that might indicate who you are. Also hid pics to guests. Only thing that they might find now might be Links that you have posted in your signature or something?

Delete button? 

Just finished the last of the big security mods. 

So far things seem to be working well. Will implement some of the firewall settings in the next few days.

Only one more mod which will rewrite Url's to match the topic. There's an experimental update for this software. Maybe I'll try it tomorrow?

Got daring and installed the rewrite mod today.

So far it seems to be working?