Anti-Spam Form for Yii2 Framework

Anti-Spam Form is a form replacement component for the Yii2 Framework for creating anti-spam forms that are invisible in HTML code to spam bots & harvesting tools.

What's the idea behind anti-spam forms?

The concept is simple. Spam bots in most cases are simple tools. They will read your website, look for <form> HTML tags and artificially fill up the form fields and post it.

The usual spam bot is a web scraper written in Python retrieving raw HTML webpage content without evaluating JS code.

But one thing missed in anti-spam detection methods is that spam bots usually cannot process JavaScript code. For a good reason. It's time-consuming and requires JS interpreter to evaluate the JS code within the web page. And it's not that easy to incorporate JS evaluation without using complex & slower execution engines usually based on Chromium etc.

How to break spam bots?

Simple - put the HTML forms wrapped within JS code. Not the entire form, but the starting <form> tag with all its properties.

Suddenly the spam bots are unable to find it. Less spam without too much work.

How to install Anti-Spam Form component?

Install it first. Preferred way of WebApi interface installation is via composer.

Run:

php composer.phar require --prefer-dist pelock/yii2-anti-spam-form "*"

Or add this entry:

"pelock/yii2-anti-spam-form": "*"

directly to your composer.json in require section.

Installation package is available at https://packagist.org/packages/pelock/yii2-anti-spam-form

How to use Anti-Spam Form?

Replace your regular Yii2 ActiveForm component:

<div class="active-form">
<?php $form = ActiveForm::begin(['id' => 'contact-form']); ?>
    <?= $form->field($model, 'name') ?>
    <?= $form->field($model, 'email')->textInput(['type' => 'email']) ?>
    <?= $form->field($model, 'subject') ?>
    <?= $form->field($model, 'body')->textArea(['rows' => 6]) ?>

    <?php //echo Html::submitButton('Send', ['class' => 'btn btn-block btn-primary', 'name' => 'contact-button']) ?>

    <?php echo $form->field($model, 'verifyCode')->widget(Captcha::className(), [ 'template' => '<div class="row"><div class="col-xs-4 col-sm-3 col-md-3">{image}</div><div class="col-xs-2 col-sm-3 col-md-3">{input}</div><div class="col-xs-6 col-sm-6 col-md-6">'. Html::submitButton('Send', ['class' => 'btn btn-block btn-primary', 'name' => 'contact-button']) .'</div></div>', ]) ?>
<?php ActiveForm::end(); ?>
</div>

with AntiSpamForm:

// include AntiSpamForm
use pelock\antispamform\AntiSpamForm;

...

<div class="active-form">
<!--replace here -->
<?php $form = AntiSpamForm::begin(['id' => 'contact-form']); ?>
    <?= $form->field($model, 'name') ?>
    <?= $form->field($model, 'email')->textInput(['type' => 'email']) ?>
    <?= $form->field($model, 'subject') ?>
    <?= $form->field($model, 'body')->textArea(['rows' => 6]) ?>

    <?php //echo Html::submitButton('Send', ['class' => 'btn btn-block btn-primary', 'name' => 'contact-button']) ?>

    <?php echo $form->field($model, 'verifyCode')->widget(Captcha::className(), [ 'template' => '<div class="row"><div class="col-xs-4 col-sm-3 col-md-3">{image}</div><div class="col-xs-2 col-sm-3 col-md-3">{input}</div><div class="col-xs-6 col-sm-6 col-md-6">'. Html::submitButton('Send', ['class' => 'btn btn-block btn-primary', 'name' => 'contact-button']) .'</div></div>', ]) ?>
<!--and here -->    
<?php AntiSpamForm::end(); ?>
</div>

That's all! The forms are going to work exactly the same, the only difference is the output HTML code.

Generated HTML code

What's the difference between the usual ActiveForm output HTML code and AntiSpamForm code?

Lets take a look. Before:

<div class="active-form">
  <!--visible <form> tag -->  
  <form id="contact-form" action="/contact" method="post">
    <input type="hidden" name="_csrf" value="u18o4NxJC5lZEhHhjpMTd-c7p3ZzYzl0wvsXMiefJJ_0HWGpr1pm6x5Qa4vnpVw5o1yXNzEQ7USUlE9HVNlGzQ==">
    <div class="form-group field-contactform-name required">
      <label class="control-label" for="contactform-name">Name</label>
      <input type="text" id="contactform-name" class="form-control" name="ContactForm[name]" aria-required="true">
      <p class="help-block help-block-error"></p>
    </div>
    <div class="form-group field-contactform-email required">
      <label class="control-label" for="contactform-email">Email</label>
      <input type="email" id="contactform-email" class="form-control" name="ContactForm[email]" aria-required="true">
      <p class="help-block help-block-error"></p>
    </div>
    <div class="form-group field-contactform-subject required">
      <label class="control-label" for="contactform-subject">Subject</label>
      <input type="text" id="contactform-subject" class="form-control" name="ContactForm[subject]" aria-required="true">
      <p class="help-block help-block-error"></p>
    </div>
    <div class="form-group field-contactform-body required">
      <label class="control-label" for="contactform-body">Body</label>
      <textarea id="contactform-body" class="form-control" name="ContactForm[body]" rows="6" aria-required="true"></textarea>
      <p class="help-block help-block-error"></p>
    </div>
    <div class="form-group field-contactform-verifycode">
      <label class="control-label" for="contactform-verifycode">Verification Code</label>
      <div class="row">
        <div class="col-xs-4 col-sm-3 col-md-3">
          <img id="contactform-verifycode-image" src="/site/captcha?v=62cff29d6ebe55.89254929" alt="">
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-2 col-sm-3 col-md-3">
          <input type="text" id="contactform-verifycode" class="form-control" name="ContactForm[verifyCode]">
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-6 col-sm-6 col-md-6">
          <button type="submit" class="btn btn-block btn-primary" name="contact-button">Send</button>
        </div>
      </div>
      <p class="help-block help-block-error"></p>
    </div>
  </form>
</div>

After:

<div class="active-form">
  <!-- <form> tag dynamically generated with the JavaScript code -->    
  <script>
    document.write(atob("PGZvcm0gaWQ9ImNvbnRhY3QtZm9ybSIgYWN0aW9uPSIvY29udGFjdCIgbWV0aG9kPSJwb3N0Ij4KPGlucHV0IHR5cGU9ImhpZGRlbiIgbmFtZT0iX2NzcmYiIHZhbHVlPSJ1MFczN0JLaDJOQko2Q2lVeTFxc3R3OEp6aC1mcUxxOXRnOEpQem9CUjZfMEJfNmxYX0sxb2c2cVV2NmliT1A1UzI3LVh0M2F6bzNnWUZGS1NVY2xfUT09Ij4="));
  </script>
  <div class="form-group field-contactform-name required">
    <label class="control-label" for="contactform-name">Name</label>
    <input type="text" id="contactform-name" class="form-control" name="ContactForm[name]" aria-required="true">
    <p class="help-block help-block-error"></p>
  </div>
  <div class="form-group field-contactform-email required">
    <label class="control-label" for="contactform-email">Email</label>
    <input type="email" id="contactform-email" class="form-control" name="ContactForm[email]" aria-required="true">
    <p class="help-block help-block-error"></p>
  </div>
  <div class="form-group field-contactform-subject required">
    <label class="control-label" for="contactform-subject">Subject</label>
    <input type="text" id="contactform-subject" class="form-control" name="ContactForm[subject]" aria-required="true">
    <p class="help-block help-block-error"></p>
  </div>
  <div class="form-group field-contactform-body required">
    <label class="control-label" for="contactform-body">Body</label>
    <textarea id="contactform-body" class="form-control" name="ContactForm[body]" rows="6" aria-required="true"></textarea>
    <p class="help-block help-block-error"></p>
  </div>
  <div class="form-group field-contactform-verifycode">
    <label class="control-label" for="contactform-verifycode">Verification Code</label>
    <div class="row">
      <div class="col-xs-4 col-sm-3 col-md-3">
        <img id="contactform-verifycode-image" src="/site/captcha?v=62cff214a00af2.73036299" alt="">
      </div>
      <div class="col-xs-2 col-sm-3 col-md-3">
        <input type="text" id="contactform-verifycode" class="form-control" name="ContactForm[verifyCode]">
      </div>
      <div class="col-xs-6 col-sm-6 col-md-6">
        <button type="submit" class="btn btn-block btn-primary" name="contact-button">Send</button>
      </div>
    </div>
    <p class="help-block help-block-error"></p>
  </div>
  </form>
</div>

The JavaScript code generates output <form> element with all of its properties. Simple & effective solution against spam bots and web scrapers, harvesters etc.

Should I remove CAPTCHA validations?

No. You should leave your CAPTCHA verifications in place, because some bots are able to run JS code, so the Anti-Spam Form will provide an additional layer of anti-spam protection.

Sources

All sources are available at GitHub:

https://github.com/PELock/yii2-anti-spam-form

Bugs, questions, feature requests

Hope you like it. For questions, bug & feature requests visit my site:

Bartosz Wójcik | https://www.pelock.com