For those we lost, We will not forget 09/11/2001 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
— The Continental Congress, July 4, 1776

“The task of statesmanship has always been the re-definition of these rights in terms of a changing and growing social order.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt (Commonwealth Club Address, 1932)

“Roosevelt was wrong! The principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence are the principles of individual liberty. Our unalienable rights, given to us by God are given to us as individuals. Our rights do not come from society or the government, and they cannot be redefined by politicians. The nature of these rights carries with it the implication of individual responsibility, without which we surrender them.”
— Perri Nelson, November 6, 2008

Comment Spammers

Published Mon, Feb 5 2007 8:48 AM
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Annoyances

What an annoyance.

You'd think that after banning a few IP addresses they'd get the message.

It doesn't seem to work that way though. They just keep spamming. Whether they're shilling viagra, pornography, or penny stocks, they just keep at it.

I've tried AKismet, and it worked for a while, or at least it seemed to. Now though, I find myself still having to go in and delete comments on a fairly regular basis, despite the anti-spam software.

I'm going to have to revisit the comment module on this site when I get some time. It appears to block some legitimate commenters when it shouldn't and it lets far too many of the spammers through.

The latest round of spammers is just going over the top though. Some "Hillary Ferg" or is it "Bill Ferg" or just "Ferg" was spamming for a while. I think I've finally managed to block them, but I had to go beyond the IP filter to do it. Now though it's "Greg" and the subject of his spam is particularly annoying.

Just like all of the comment spammers, he's hitting "old" posts, frequently the same one. The post content is always the same:

If you wanna stop guestbook spammers just confirm url of this page to <email address of spammer deleted> with subject:ANTISPAM. Thx.

Isn't that the height of hubris? Send me your email address so I will stop spamming you? I guess "Greg" is going to have to get the same treatment.

And I'm going to have to find or write a stronger anti-spam filter.

Anyone got any recommendations?

Trackposted to Mark My Words, third world county, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, basil's blog, DragonLady's World, Pirate's Cove, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, and Conservative Thoughts, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Basil responded with:

There is a very useful plugin for WordPress blogs that closes posts (comments and trackbacks) after a defined number of days (default is 30). I found it quite useful for cutting down the amount of spam.

One version is here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins/Auto_shutoff_comments (for WP 1.5.x)

The other version is here: http://www.jamesmckay.net/code/comment-timeout/ (for WP 2.x)

Not sure if the PHP code will do you any good on an ASP site, but you can examine it and see how they handle the process. Also, if any WordPress users came to this post with the same issue, it may benefit them.

drmike responded with:

Well, if you're deleting comments that Akismet missed, then you're doing it wrong.  You should be marking them as spam.  That way the system learns from it's mistakes.

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