May 31

Bot Spamming

Gadgetopia got targeted by a comment spam bot over the weekend. Two entries were targeted, and each got 80 comments apiece — one for a site with rape fiction, the other for a porn site apparently specializing in incest. This happen three times over the weekend, for a total of 480 spam comments.

Needless to say I’m frustrated pissed off.

I’ve dealt with comment spam before, but not on this magnitude, nor with topics this offensive. What bothers me the most is that it doesn’t just clutter up this site.

All the Gadgetopia authors get comments emailed to them, and there’s a comments RSS feed. This means that a bunch of people got this filth in their aggregators, and my fellow editors — whom I appreciate to no end for helping me with this site — got hundreds of emails before I realized what was going on and shut it off. So this idiot has essentially used me to irritate other people (and, trust me, I need no help there…).

I tried banning the IP, but the bot is coming in from a different address every time. I’ve taken some steps outlined by Adam Kalsey a few months ago to prevent this from happening again.

To everyone who was affected via email or RSS, I’m very sorry.

by Deane   May 31, 2004 4:02 PM   |

Comments

by Dave,   June 1, 2004 11:20 PM  

I haven't been hit with anything quite that bad yet. but even my little site has had its share of comment spam. Since posting about this for the first time on April 20th, I'm averaging about three a week. Fortunately -- or unfortunately, depending on your point of view -- I get an e-mail each time one shows up, so I can delete it quickly.

Article: Comment spammers suck http://www.beauvais1.com/archives/2004/04/20/comment-spammers-suck/

by Mean Dean,   June 2, 2004 10:31 AM  

Deane, I'd be glad to help you install the Jay Allen MT-Blacklist application (though I know you're more than capable of doing it yourself).

If you do go that route, please feel free to use my very short, but effective blacklist UBER regular expressions.

by Deane,   June 2, 2004 10:46 AM  

Thanks, pal. I tried to install it once, but this host is a little screwy and it wouldn't take. I need to move this site to my own server where I can have more control over it.

by Mean Dean,   June 2, 2004 1:41 PM  

I need to move this site to my own server where I can have more control over it.

Email me ... have I got a situation for you!

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