Message Board

Newbie/Basic Questions

Got lost in step 3

Author: R.Garland2 (20 Feb 12 8:16pm)

Hey there,

I may not be a good candidate to do this, because I don't even know what language my site is using. Anyway, I'm trying anyway (although I'm concerned about getting myself blacklisted accidentally).

This is where I'm stuck.

Step 3: Activate Script [« next step]

YOUR SCRIPT HONEY POT SCRIPT SHOULD BEGIN DOWNLOADING IN 5 SECONDS...

After installing your script you need to activate it. To do so, simply install the script in the appropriate place on your server AND ACCESS THROUGH YOUR WEBSITE VIA ANY INTERNET BROWSER. If installed correctly, the script will contain instructions and a link. By clicking on that link you will activate the script so it can begin to deliver honey pot addresses.

Sooo, how do I access the honeypot through my website?

And... from reading other people's posts here - do I have to make everything on my site no follow?

Re: Got lost in step 3

Author: H.User1325 (21 Feb 12 7:24am)

Hi Garland,
First it is almost imposable to get blacklisted accidentally. You would need to go to your honeypot with your browser and seeing the page that tell you not to collect email addresses, do a <CTRL> U to look at the source HTML of the page. Looking at the source code you would see a hidden email addresses. You would then need to send an email to that email address. All those steps are not likely to be followed by accident, That is the point, you do not become a spammer by accident.

From your post it is not clear to me that you have downloaded your honeypot zip file, unzipped it, and installed the honeypot script. Have you done all of these things?

If you have installed the script on your domain at lets say;
http://www.yourdomain.com/directory/filename.php then:

To access your honeypot script open your favorite browser and enter http://www.yourdomain.com/directery/filename.php as the web page you want to see. If the script runs correctly just follow the onscreen directions.

And... No you do not need to change any links on your site to no_follow. In most cases you want "well behaved" spiders/bots from Google, bing or yahoo, to follow links on you site and add other pages to there directory of your site. A well behaved bot will not find or follow any links in your web pages to the honeypot. Those links are hidden and a proper spiders will not follow then.

Hope this helps. Any other questions, I will try to help.

Re: Got lost in step 3

Author: R.Garland2 (21 Feb 12 9:30am)

Dear H.,

Thank you for your help! I didn't even think of unzipping the file. I unzipped it, followed the link, and it worked perfectly.

So now I'm on the 4th step. I am supposed to put links in as many different pages as possible. Here are my two questions:

1. I have over 300 pages on my blog site. Is it possible to just put the links on the 5 or so ones that I know bad bots/people/whatever visit the most?

2. I don't understand if I'm supposed to copy and paste the links exactly like the page showed. For example:

<a href="http://mydomain/myhoneypot.php"></a>

It has the word fury in there - do I copy it exactly as it's shown? Or do I replace the word 'fury' for something else? I'm fine with it as it is, and it would make things nice and easy for me - but I don't want to do it wrong.

Once you answer these last two questions, I think I'll be good to go as long as I never have to remove the honeypot!

Thank you again! :)

R. :)

Re: Got lost in step 3

Author: H.User1325 (21 Feb 12 4:29pm)

R. you are on a roll!

Did you unzip in place so that all the files (dir Extras, dir Legal Documents, links.txt etc) are on your domain? If so, just as a matter of neatness they should be saved off line but deleted from your domain. (apologizes if this is obvious to the casual observer. Just checking).

1. You can sprinkle links to your honeypot where ever you choose. Just on the half-dozen pages with the most bot traffic sounds like a plan. I have several domains I maintain. When I first set up honeypots I added links on several pages. Now every time I update a page or add a new one, adding or changing HP links is one of the last thing I do, along with changing the revised date.

2. Copy and paste will do. Several examples are given so that you can pick one, or more, that match you programing style and will fit into you pages, as is.

Before you change a suggested link be sure you understand what the "some what odd" code does. The link you used for example, normally an anchor would be

<a href="http://mydomain/myhoneypot.php"> fury </a>

The word "fury" would display on you web page for people to click on to go to myhoneypot.php. By making that a HTML comment  nothing shows up on you page so a real person does not see anything to click on. However, a bot will see the link in the code and follow it (we hope). So you could change that comment to anything, it should not show anyway.

Other examples, use CSS to locate the link way off of the visible page so it can't be clicked on by real people.

2a. That is something else you might consider as you feel comfortable with some of the other links suggested. By using several different style of links you increase the possibility that a bad bot will not have been programed to skip over the link you use.

As you know this is an arms battle. As the good guys do something new, the bad guys get smarter and the new trick stops working, and the cycle starts all over again.

Lou

Post Edited (21 Feb 12 4:33pm)

Re: Got lost in step 3

Author: R.Garland2 (21 Feb 12 6:18pm)

Hi Lou. :)

You rock! Awesome answers. :)

I appreciate the good guy/bad guy analogies. It's exactly how I think about complicated computer stuff I haven't had a reason to study yet (I just had to get rid of a RAT, and used the same verbiage when asking for help, so you made it really understandable for me). Like Spy vs Spy! Perfect!

Ok, so...

"Did you unzip in place so that all the files (dir Extras, dir Legal Documents, links.txt etc) are on your domain? If so, just as a matter of neatness they should be saved off line but deleted from your domain. (apologizes if this is obvious to the casual observer. Just checking)."

So, I'm supposed to delete all the files I just installed? Huh? Very confused on that one. I manage my own domain, but I kinda make it up as I go along - figuring things out one need at a time - do you know what I mean? I wasn't even sure I put them in the right folder, but it seemed to work, so I must have. Phew!

I guess I'm saying that I'm pretty sure I have 3 duplicates of everything in my domain in every folder, anyway, so do you think I could just leave them? I've never figured out which folder is the right one for all kinds of different things. Probably wouldn't hurt anything if I didn't delete them right? Or would it?

The rest made sense though - thanks for the advice and encouragement!

Rosie

P.S. I don't want to spam anyone, so I will post just one last time once I install all the links.

Re: Got lost in step 3

Author: R.Garland2 (21 Feb 12 6:49pm)

Nevermind, figured it out. :) Everything seems to be going according to plan. Thanks everyone!

Post Edited (21 Feb 12 6:53pm)

Re: Got lost in step 3

Author: K.Hopster (23 Feb 12 4:53am)

Hi!
I read your posts because I have a similar problem. I hope I installed the zip fie in a correct place. I use Joomla and think it has to be in the html folder in the template file. I unzipped it there. Unfortunately (and i am really sorry if this is a newbie stupid question) I don't know where to access that file in a browser...
If i do i get a 404. So i am doing something wrong... Or maybe i should put the unzipped file somewhere else?
Help?
Ka

For All Joomla People

Author: A.Mahey (10 Jan 14 10:02pm)

Hi!

For those using Joomla 2.5, i hope this helps. I struggled too, but reading this helped. Also, there might be some 403 errors coming up.

To all joomla user, try the following:

1. under "public_html" (this would be in cpanel or what ever software your host provides), create a folder, lets saying "badbots"

2. Place your php script, lets say "botscript.php" in this folder (the script you obtained from Project Honeypot.)

3. One thing to note is that "public_html" may be called something else by your host. it can be "www" also. In Xampp it is "htdocs"

4. Next, you will have to set up permissions. Please google on setting up permission for your script. Permissions should only be "relaxed" on this script.

5. If you have Admin Tools installed, use the .htaccess maker instead. Under .htaccess maker, go to Exceptions and add "yourfolder/youscript"

6. In this example it would be badbot/botscript.php

7. Visit the script: www.examplesite/badbot/botscript.php it should now be working.

8. then, add the above link to your template's main page by visiting Template Manager. you can do like "<a href="www.examplesite/badbot/botscript.php"> <

9. That way all your pages will have the link.

Hope this helped.

Hope this helped.