#&$@%

October 7th, 2008 | Uncategorized

I’m having trouble staying on top of the spam, folks. These drug links keep taking over my posts and eliminating the comment box…I go in and delete it, but the comment function won’t come back. So until I can come up with a proper solution I’ll just keep opening new posts in case anyone wants to comment.

21 Responses to “#&$@%”

  1. Feminista says:

    Away,away,damned spam!

    AB,thanks for persisting despite the increasing “spamification.”

    I enjoyed the Phranc videos. Thanks!

  2. Jessie says:

    wow. thanks.

    I am facing a loss in my life that has just knocked the stuffing out of me. One of the things that both brings me to tears but is keeping me going is reciting, “you do not have to be good, you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting…”

    Fall in VT look lovely. Fall in wisconsin is cold and fall in california is imaginary.

  3. AstroGirl says:

    Don’t despair, Alison, not sure what kind of code your site is based on – but if it’s any kind of out-of-the-box blogging platform, then you might find there is a ready-made solution to help you fight back – for instance WordPress has a free plugin called ‘Akismet’ which pretty much takes care of it on your behalf. It looks from your page code like you may be using WordPress, so I’d suggest talking to your tech gal or guy and see whether there’s anything they can do, including installing Akismet for you.

    Also, I selected the ‘view source’ for this post and got something pretty alarming – a vast number of similar drug-spam links are showing up in there even though they are not appearing on the page which might suggest a breach of some kind. I would imagine this is a pathetic attempt by the spammer to get Google rankings by trying to fool that august organisation into thinking your very high-traffic site is legitimately linking to them.

    I would suggest going into your hosting control panel and blocking all requests from http://www.oksameridial.net which seems to be the site behind it – you might also be able to get some associated IP addresses from your access logs and block those as well. You could try a domain lookup on these details and report them as spammers to their hosting company too. Also Google accepts reports from webmasters about people posting spam links.

    I know this is tedious and that you’ve got a thousand better things to do with your time – but a few simple measures and they shouldn’t be able to get away with this kind of abuse your site again. You might want to ask tech gal/guy to take a look at the permissions on your server to make sure they are set at a high enough level to stop people getting unauthorised access. Otherwise the file http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/xmlrpc.php provides a means for outsiders to post to your blog remotely, and you really need to cut this off at the root.

    The very best of luck with defeating the bastards.

    AstroGirl

  4. Kelli says:

    Time to install a captcha, perhaps?

  5. Charles in Vancouver says:

    ReCaptcha is a good one – it helps digitize book text at the same time as it eliminates spam :))

  6. Jules says:

    I had similar problems, but it’s been nice and quiet on my blog ever since I installed these WordPress plugins, which I therefore would like to recommend:

    http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/simple-trackback-validation/

    http://wordpress-plugins.feifei.us/hashcash/

    and the mother of all WP spam plugins,

    http://akismet.com/

    The first one seems to be the most suited for your needs, so if I have gone a little overboard with my suggestions you might just want to give that one a try… oh, and it looks like you’re running an older version of WordPress, so maybe you’d want to update to the latest version (it’s such a pain, I know!) because 1.x had some security holes that allegedly have been fixed in 2.x.

    I’m really sorry the spam wave hit you so hard 🙁

  7. Sophie in Montreal says:

    Wow – I had no idea that everytime I dutifully typed in a wiggly word, I helped digitizing a book. Go Carnegie Mellon! And go Alison, you can beat the spambots (and the fembots).

  8. shadocat says:

    here’s a picture of autumn in missouri—it’s getting pretty here too.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/revad/273521327/

  9. Catsanova says:

    I’m with Charles on thumbs up for ReCaptcha; also, it’s accessible to people with disabilities.

  10. Ipstenu says:

    Alas, you are well and truly spamjacked (if you view source of this page, it’s filled with spam)

    Three suggestions:
    1) Upgrade WordPress to v 2.5.1 –
    2) Install the plugin Akismet
    3) Install the Plugin for Bad-Behavior

    The WordPress upgrade is dead easy, so is the plugin install and set up.

    You DON’T need a Captcha or anything with Akismet and Bad-behavior.

  11. lacinda says:

    Akismet works well for me, too.

  12. g-lo says:

    Thanks for all the fine advice everyone. The issue (as noted by several) wasn’t so much to do with comment spam (akismet does a handy job there) as it was with sql injection. It should be under control now, so I hope no one missed out on their chance for cheap viagra.

    Extra thanks to Ipstenu for the heads up on Bad Behavior, even though comment spam wasn’t the central issue.

  13. Ready2Agitate says:

    I can’t follow this thread. However, I like that (to me at least) it seems Alison is speaking in cartoon-speak (wasn’t that how %&@%#$ was invented, at least?) (don’t answer that – it sounds like you are all very busy being knowledgeable about ‘puters!)

  14. Alex K says:

    Awe.

    @Astrogirl / Ipstenu / lacinda / Jules: Competence is such a goddamned turn-on!

    Please imagine me with my elbows on the desk, forearms up, palms down, fingers interlocked to cradle my chin, and a dreamy expression on my face as I think about all of you.

    And, AB — I do hope their suggestions help.

  15. Aunt Soozie says:

    I also have no idea what gahlord (et al) is talking about… or if g-lo’s name is really gahlord but I’m glad someone is out there dutifully protecting the website’s of the smart and sweet with programs named things like… “bad behavior”… and also… uhm…. dang… never ordered my cheap viagra… oh well….

  16. AnaDemeter says:

    It’s a plot by the Republicans, AB. Fight the power!

  17. laura says:

    I’m impressed too–I usually explain to myself that the computer works because there are microscopic gnomes inside activated by the keys and the mouse. I also like to think that “bad behavior (presumably by AB) has blocked 1585 access attempts”. This is something I have always been convinced of: behaving badly is good for you!

  18. All hail G-Lo for the unspamjackification!
    And thank you to all the geeky folk who contributed their intoxicating competence to our cause.

  19. pd says:

    sql-injection is easy to prevent once you know what to look for.

  20. Ginjoint says:

    Andrea C, thanks for that link. Now this blog has got me all wondering about Mary Oliver and her poems. Now I have to go read more of that blog in Andrea’s link – I’ve found another Lego fanatic!