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This is a simple spamtrap to fight spamdexing. You can create bogus form fields (honeypots) that will be filled-in by spambots. When these forms are submitted, the content will be discarded while still returning a 200 response.

In Rails 2.3, add the following to your environment.rb:

config.gem 'spamtrap'

In Rails 3+ (or if using Bundler), add the following to your Gemfile:

gem 'spamtrap'

Declare the controller actions you want the spamtrap enabled for:

class CommentsController < ApplicationController
  spamtrap :sarah_palin_walks_with_dinosaurs, only: %i(create update)
end

In your views, add a call to the “spamtrap” form builder to your forms to output the honeypot fields:

- form_for @comment do |f|
  = f.spamtrap :sarah_palin_walks_with_dinosaurs, class: 'reindeer_jerky'
  %fieldset
    = f.label :body
    = f.text_area :body
  = f.submit

Now you just need to hide the spamtrap from your real users by adding this to your CSS:

.reindeer_jerky { display: none; }

The spamtrap mix-in can also take an optional block, where you can do more advance things – like swapping the honeypot with a real form parameter.

• Add a cryptographic nonce to prevent replay attacks. It would probably be an MD5 hash consisting of a timestamp, ip address and a secret token. The timeout would be configurable.

• Consider field name mutation throughout form.

• Write some tests. Ack!

(The MIT License)

Copyright © 2010-2014 Cedric Howe

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The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

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