[FRIAM] Comment Spam!

[Louis Macovsky, Dynamic BioSystems]

Do you send spam to spam at uce.gov?

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/07/newspamemail.htm

Lou


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Owen Densmore" <owen at backspaces.net>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <friam at redfish.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2006 8:04 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Comment Spam!


> Yup, captcha was a possible plugin choice for my Textpattern system.
> But I wanted to avoid it if possible, I find them really annoying.
>
> So I tried two alternative plugins:
> - A simple link counter: more than 2 links require moderation, more
> than 5 are tossed.  This one also has a small list of obvious words
> (viagra, porn, ...) to check for as well.
> - A known spam-bot list which uses the current hot bot ip addresses
> to toss spam.
>
> Between the two of these, I looked at my logs this morning and they
> foiled *200* attempts with none getting through!  So that looks
> promising.
>
>     -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore   http://backspaces.net
>
>
> On Oct 27, 2006, at 10:53 PM, James Steiner wrote:
>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha
>> http://www.captcha.net/
>>
>> CAPTCHA(TM)s (the distorted word thingys "Completely Automated Public
>> Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") and other cognitive
>> puzzles (pick the picture of a kitten from the 9 pictures to prove you
>> are not a spambot)  seem to be de riguer... though there are
>> techniques for defeating them on the large scale.
>>
>> For a small site, just implementing a *bad* captcha can be enough to
>> prevent minor/lazy spambots from visiting.
>>
>> Another techniques I've seen include the use of awful click-with-mouse
>> javascript keypad where the numbers move around, and the numbers are
>> graphics, but the code doesn't say which key is which number (its
>> obfuscated), so a computer reading the webpage can't tell which
>> buttons to press. Its super-duper annoying.
>>
>> ~~James
>>
>> On 10/27/06, Owen Densmore <owen at backspaces.net> wrote:
>>> Wow!  I just got hit with over *400* comment spams on backspaces!
>>>
>>> I had heard about it but had not personally experienced it.  Its why
>>> you get those weird and annoying "tell me what this distorted image
>>> says" tickets before being able to enter your comment for forums or
>>> blogs.
>>>
>>> So I've instituted several suggestions on this page:
>>>    http://textpattern.net/wiki/index.php?title=Combat_Comment_Spam
>>> .. but it seems a difficult problem to solve, other than simply
>>> moderating every comment.
>>>
>>> Have any of us friamers had this happen to their sites?  Any
>>> interesting solutions?
>>>
>>>      -- Owen
>>>
>>> Owen Densmore   http://backspaces.net
>>
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>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>