Both this board and the BVA board -- and, in fact, all phpbb boards -- have been hit in the last two weeks or so with ever-increasing spambot registrations. Apparently someone cracked phpbb3 CAPCHA and sold it to spammers. Some boards are getting hundreds of spam registrations a day; we're getting about ten. Though both our boards use "admin approval," it's still annoying because legit user requests get buried.
Anyway, phpbb's main site was also hacked last week. So while there are temporary support forums, there's no official answer right now.
For the time being, I have put in a custom field on the registration page. We'll see if it helps.
Spam Stuff
Moderator: Student Council