Category: Blogging

Got hit by another 300 spams this evening. While the script/bot/whatever was spamming me, I sent an invoice for $30,000 (300 x $100 per ad) off to the gent in Moscow… so says Whois anyway.

However, a majority of the posts do not have direct URL’s, therefore, it makes it very diffucult to remove except manually. They are the same mass spam posts I think Grant Skinner got. I’m hoping I might be able to make one big Regular Expression or something for Blacklist, who knows… anyway, I’m down with a fever & sore throat, 2 contract projects due yesterday, 2 homework assignments from school today, and an unpainted kitchen… I’m being attacked when I’m weakest to defend.

*sigh*

:: charges headlong into the gunfire ::

I have added some custom URL’s in my time, so following the lead of <a href=”http://www.markme.com/mesh/archives/004206.cfm”>Mike Chambers</a>, I’m linking to <a href=”https://www.jessewarden.com/blacklist.txt”>my blacklist</a> as well. It might help also if you close comments on the postings that are older, but are still getting spammed if your using MT.

Lock and Load.

“HQ, this is Dust Devil taking heavy fire! We were just cluster bombed by 207.44.162.2, consisting of 200+spam comments containing 24-packed urls, request air support!!!”

“Roger that Dust Devil, MT-blacklist OTW on your position. ETA, 2 minutes. Hang in there, son.”

*crackle* *crackle* *hiss*

“..hiss…SEMPER FI!!!”

BOOOM!!!

:: 2 minutes later ::

…”HQ, 207.44.162.2 banned, urls blocked, spam comments destroyed, and blog crystal clean after a refresh. Suggest we upgrade MT to 2.66+ to prevent future incursions, sir.”

“Copy that, Dust Devil, scheduled tomorrow at o-eight hundred hours. Good job, soldier! Carry on.”

—

Suck it spammers, I’m armed and dangerous!

It appears that <a href=”http://www.jayallen.org/projects/mt-blacklist/”>MT Blacklist</a> is actually working. It’s been over a week since I’ve installed it, and I had 2 blog spam comments since. I usually get at least 2 a day. After adding those 2 new blog spam url’s into the master list, I haven’t heard hide nor hizz-nair from the blog spammers thanking me for my site.

The good thing about adding the URL’s is it costs them, at the very least, some time and money to get the URL’s in the first place, unlike the IP’s which are easily spoofed within seconds. This very fact certainly makes it a lot easier emotionally to log into MT Blacklist and add the offending URL’s. I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time. I feel empowered, like my retaliation efforts are no longer on the losing side of trench warfare, like I’m making a difference enough so to feel like I’m winning. The battle at least. With the amount of money involved, the spammers will still find a way in the long run, but in the short run, I’ve become more productive, and have renewed faith in <a href=”http://www.moveabletype.org/”>MoveableType</a> as a good blogging product.

I don’t think the spammers are on vacation because both my inboxes (home and work) are full to the brim each morning, and I shoot down emails throughout the day. Regardless, if they return in force to my blog, I’m armed and ready.

It feels good. Really good.