Dunstan Orchard -- Spam Catcher!
July 02, 2004 | 
25 Comments
To the easily offended: “Earmuffs!”
I’m not going to bleep the f-bombs here and you may want to skip this one.
As many of you may know I HATE Spam. I’m sure you do too (well, except for you stupid, fucking, lowlife spammers out there), but I really, really hate it:
I fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking HATE SPAM!!! ARGH!!!
I feel better! Ok, now that that is out of the way, to the topic of this post.
It seems like recently the stupid, fucking, lowlife spammers that waste their time spamming my site on a daily basis have been starting pretty predictable with my alphabetical first post. That post is titled “1976 Design” — Dunstan’s awesome site.
This isn’t the only post they spam, but it seems like the majority of the stupid fuckers have been starting here lately. So, instead of hunting though my comments for spam URLs to delete and add to my spam shit-list (it’s a blacklist, but shit-list seems a bit more appropriate), I can use Dunstan’s site’s post as a bit of a trap, or one-stop shop for all my spam busting needs!
So, thanks Dunstan — with your unwitting help we’re sticking it to those dumb fucking spammers.
Filed under: Web General
Comments
1. Mike said:
I would gut any person who I found out wrote some comment spam software. Nothing is worse than going to my poor weblog and seeing adverts for incest sex, child porn, and animal rape on my front page (since I list the most recent comments on the top).
It has been getting better though, because I’ve been in touch with TypePad for a few weeks and they are working on many spam solutions for their hosted sites. I was so freakin’ glad to hear that, because I was about to just drop my entire TypePad subscription, lose all my PageRank goodness, readers, and say f*ck it.
Attention comment spammers: my name is Mike Rundle and I’m comin’ for YOUR ASS!
Ooooh that felt good :)
Posted on July 2, 2004 08:30 AM | #
2. Carsten Ringe said:
Ye, comment spam really sucks. But referrer spam is another big issue on weblog systems like the one I’m running at my private page. I watched my logs and was really shocked when I spotted a referrer coming from a google search for “peni.” (dotted out the last “s”). My site was under the top10 at google for that word! I can’t believe.
After getting back to my seat I take a deep look at my shit-list, putting every spam domain in it i can find. It’s better now, but I think Googlebot have to crawl some more pages to get my off that results. :-/
Posted on July 2, 2004 08:54 AM | #
3. Josh Bryant said:
Why not just close comments on posts that are more than a week old? Forgive my ignorance if that is a really stupid idea, maybe I just don’t fully understand what is happening.
Sorry to hear that you keep getting spammed. I wish there was a way to stop it all but it looks like something that we are going to have to deal with for a very long time in this industry.
Cheers Keith!
Posted on July 2, 2004 08:59 AM | #
4. Keith said:
Mike – You know I’m with you man.
Carsten – At least my referral spam isn’t viewable to the public, but yeah I f*cking hate that too. I also hate that because of my spam filter I can’t say F*CK in my own comments!
Josh – I thought of this, the problem is that some posts are still relevant and comment worthy months later. I may do that if it ever gets real bad…
Posted on July 2, 2004 09:06 AM | #
5. monkeyinabox said:
If hackers can put together DOS attacks to take down major sites, then why couldn’t someone set up a site spamming database for sites that spam around their URL? Then unleash the hounds on them, by crippling their sites. SPAM, SPIM, comment spam, pop ups…. isn’t life grand?
Posted on July 2, 2004 09:11 AM | #
6. Rob Mientjes said:
Ohh! I hate spam! I know how you feel! It just feels dirty. On my Gmail, I got spam after two days (no really!), which I deleted. It doesn’t matter if I do or don’t, it just feels… dirty. Ugly. I just hate it.
Posted on July 2, 2004 09:47 AM | #
7. Eric said:
Ick.
This is the only reason I don’t put “recent comments” on my sidebar - I would love to have that feature, but every other day the most recent comment would be for some sort of enlargement medication from good old ghjghj@ghjghj.com.
So I give up that feature, and know that at least they never comment on a new post, so none of my 3 visitors ever actually sees it.
I’m going to force a comment preview when I get around to it; I hear that cuts down some of the bulk.
Posted on July 2, 2004 10:24 AM | #
8. Jay Allen said:
…some posts are still relevant and comment worthy months later.
I agree…
I may do that if it ever gets real bad…
Keith, I can’t remember if you’re using MT-Blacklist. If you wait a couple of weeks and upgrade to MT 3.0, you’ll have an even better solution. More on that when it’s released. Can’t spoil the surpises…
Posted on July 2, 2004 11:03 AM | #
9. The Lizzzard said:
That could be very nice!
Posted on July 2, 2004 11:18 AM | #
10. Matt said:
Closing comments on old entries works for some sites, and it kills relevant discussion on others. Some people post once a month, should you only be able to comment on their latest post if you caught it in time? Plus most people who close comments on old entries leave trackbacks on, which is essentially the same thing as leaving comments on (and possibly worse).
It really saddens me when I hear about spam taking the joy out of blogging for people, espescially when there are several very effective solutions for it out there. I’ve been comment spam free since last December, despite my pagerank, traffic, and legitimate comments going up.
Posted on July 2, 2004 11:33 AM | #
11. Keith said:
Jay – I do use MT-Blacklist and it helps quite a bit. I’m still debating on whether or not I’m going to upgrade to MT 3.0 or switch to Wordpress. I’m also looking for a new host as one of my problems now with MT (and the blacklist) is the damn slowness of the cgi scripts. Speaking of Wordpress…
Matt – You’re right. I do close some discussions, but it really depends on the topic. I’d hate to shut something like that off just because of spam. I’m surprised you’ve been comment free since December. I mean, I get spam from real posters and I don’t see any way to eliminate that.
Does Wordpress have spam figiting measures built in, maybe a built in Dunstan? ;)
Posted on July 2, 2004 11:55 AM | #
12. Carsten Ringe said:
I got my blacklist from MT-Blacklist, too. Well, actually I only use the tld part of it, because I don’t want to use patterns exessivly to prevent ‘real’ referrers to be deleted.
I think closing old stories for comments is not a good way, because I added a comment on old posts now and then whenever I stumbled over a nice post via google, a blogsearch or just scrolling around some pages.
My private page includes a wiki and there was an incident where a spammer registered to the site and changed a whole page, filling it with XXX links… that feels like people messing around in your favorite park or cafe. :-(
Posted on July 2, 2004 12:10 PM | #
13. zsepi said:
I wonder if there is any solution against spam besides requiring registration for commenting on a site. That would prevent ” identity theft” too, which is a problem (well, maybe not in this blogsphere).
I feel this solution is too restrictive, however, I can’t think of any better one.
Posted on July 2, 2004 12:30 PM | #
14. Sergio said:
It’s become part of my daily routine to go through the new spam notifications in my inbox every morning and add them to the sh*t list. MT-Blacklist is a godsend in this respect. Plus, there are a few very considerate spammers that throw in 20 or so URL’s per comment, making my job easier.
What I’d really like to see is a central repository for trusted MT-Blacklist users (like a friends network from people you know won’t add legitimate URL’s to the thing) so that we could all catch more spammers and stop them before they have a chance to spread their crap. As it is, they have at least one chance per blog to post spam comments, even when dealing with MT-Blacklist enabled blogs.
Posted on July 2, 2004 02:08 PM | #
15. Craig C. said:
I get almost no comment spam because nobody ever visits my site. But then again, it’s astounding that I do get *any* comment spam at all because nobody ever visits my site… I get about one spam per week and WP-blacklist has caught them all so far.
So there’s your solution, just become very unpopular. Security through obscurity, baby!
Posted on July 2, 2004 02:53 PM | #
16. Dunstan said:
I am the man!
*ducks* *dodges* *weaves*
Posted on July 2, 2004 04:36 PM | #
17. Michael Watts said:
I like the lines of sergio’s idea.
Though i would suggest a site that is useable be everyone not just MT users. Prehaps a site that produces an XML file containing the list of blacklisted IP’s whcih can be processed however people like? Giving the site owners the oportunity to register to be able to submit IP’s the the blacklist.
Though as many people have dynamic IP’s i would think this would have to be restarted from scratch every month, in order to not discriminate against people who are doing no wrong…
Just an idea.. Sound good????
Posted on July 3, 2004 01:20 AM | #
18. Jay Allen said:
Well, there is the Clearinghouse and the master blacklist (which, by the way, is the list that Wordpress users use as well) but I will be the first to admit that that is imperfect. That is why the next version of MT-Blacklist goes even further than your wishes and finally includes implementation of the P2P protection nets I’ve been talking about for over six months. It’s very very cool…
That is precisely what happens. The protection spreads faster than they can spam.
IP banning is completely useless as evidenced by the recent spate of TrackBack spamming.
By the way, I must admit that it saddens me that some people have moved away from MT because it means that they’ll never get to use this new version of MT-Blacklist. Silly, I know, and I wouldn’t ever expect anyone to stay with a publishing platform just because of a spam blocking plugin, but damn this thing is sweet… :-)
Posted on July 3, 2004 04:12 AM | #
19. Matt said:
Every copy of WordPress comes with a built-in Dunstan that gives you instructions on how to cut your own hair and eats spam like a mofo. We licensed the BiD (built-in Dunstan) starting with 1.0 and it has been a tremendous success, it’s been like “catnip” with certain audiences in San Francisco.
Posted on July 3, 2004 01:38 PM | #
20. Rob Mientjes said:
“… a built-in Dunstan that gives you instructions on how to cut your own hair and eats spam like a mofo…” I want one! It sounds like the real thing to me.
*Checks WordPress site*
Posted on July 3, 2004 01:49 PM | #
21. Jay Allen said:
Yeah, but Matt, let’s be honest. It’s just a rip-off of MT-Dunstan coded by a Wordpress user who just got their Learning PHP book in the mail…
Posted on July 3, 2004 10:13 PM | #
22. Seth Thomas Rasmussen said:
And what exactly does that mean, Jay? A smug way of saying the WordPress solution isn’t good, or what? I don’t have an opinion either way, as I don’t know. I would be interested in a WordPress solution though since I have recently started to get some comment spam. Just a few random comments on random old posts here and there, but… it has begun…
Posted on July 6, 2004 11:08 AM | #
23. Mike said:
Jay: oh snap!
Posted on July 6, 2004 01:19 PM | #
24. Matt said:
I double-checked, this is grade-A certified genuine Dunstan. This version is young and full of life, I heard the Movable Type version was MT and clammy. (Empty, clam/pearl/perl, groan…)
Posted on July 6, 2004 05:27 PM | #
25. Jay Allen said:
Oh Matt… You are better than that…
Seth, cool your jets. Matt is a friend, I respect what he and others have done with WordPress and it’s nothing more than a ribbing about WP-Blacklist which is a (loving) ripoff of MT-Blacklist, which I created…
Man, people can get so testy! :-)
Posted on July 12, 2004 07:01 PM | #
Comments are now closed