One up aginst the spammers

As for the reply to the note above – this sounds like a joke! Don’t believe it! They make money by dumping their advertising all over your web site!
I have posted concerns here previously regarding the Texas Hokem or “Choke ’em” which is what I’d like to do to this spammer. I have tried all your suggestions but today, he attempted to post 500 more messages about online gambling. However, one of his messages hit a snag and the 500 messages would not post, though they are clogging the MySql database. I have appreciated everyone’s comments – I have used word blocks, set the board to “moderation” only for all messages, but none of this works or even stops spammers. In fact, none of anyone’s suggested blocks have worked. You can check it out at https://www.abduct.com/wordpress/index.php. If you click on the 45 comments, you can scroll to the bottom and see where Texas choked on the script which prevented the 500 spams from posting.
My second concern is how to TURN OFF the HTML functions which these spammers need. I do not want them crashing thru and then posting messages with active blue hyperlinks. Does anything work? I am doubtful because so far requiring users to have a login and password, or using the blacklist, or requiring all messages to be moderated, etc., has not worked at all. They can do anthing around me.

comment spam isn’t a problem for me.

But charle97, almost all of us have been able to say that. And then…

then what? i get spammed. i doubt it.

Then all the luck to you.

it’s not luck.

For those of you who STILL DON’T GET IT and still post messages that you don’t have spam, then I envy you. Obviously, your web site traffic is so low that spammers will not bother your Blog because your web traffic has too few readers. But, if you have a highly popular web site with a Blog, then you will find spammers to be your worst nightmare.
Since joining this group a month ago, I have appreciated all the suggestions previously given me and have tried them all, but none have stopped the Texas Hokem “Choke ’em” spammer. Requiring a password to post, or requiring that messages be moderated, renaming files, changing user access, or even adding hundreds of words to the Blacklist, to name just a few, have not blocked the Texas Hokem Choke ’em online casino gambling spammer. Unfortunately, taking the time to delete yesterday’s 500 spam messages from the painfully slow MySql database will take all night. I just don’t want to devote my web site time to blocking spammers. Surely there must be some sort of reverse spam assault we could launch at these gambling and porn web sites that do not let up for a second.
If anyone has any “new” ideas, please feel free to share them with me.

People who never get spam need to stop being so ****ing smug and patronising . It’s luck, not skill. Obviously macmanx you haven’t read the post before yours; abductions states that s/he has already tried every single one of the methods you advocate and they did. not. work.
Spam is a major problem for bloggers and pretending it isn’t helps nobody but the spammers. Maybe we need to start looking at social ways of combatting it, like the original poster of this thread, rather than relying on technology to do everything for us.

<soapbox>
charley – you probably do, it just doesn’t stick.
abductions – shut up, sit down, have a cold one, and chill. WE MOST CERTANLY DO [insert favorite explitive euphamism here] GET IT….. some of us have been fortunate to have installed PREVENTIVE measures BEFORE HAND, rather than waiting until it’s too late. Odds are you got hit before the code I provided came to light. If that’s the case, NO AMOUNT of spam killing meatures would have worked. Unfortunatly, there’s nothing that can clean it out other than cleaning out the comments from myPHPAdmin. More on this in a sec.
Anon – Sign your name, don’t hide. If you’ve got something to say, at least have the courage to put your name to it. I’m not asking you to register, just sign at the bottom. Obviously abductions thinks that “social measures” is a joke (x-ref post #2 above). I have found it to be the most effective means. Sometimes I end up contacting an admin whose machine was hijacked and they didn’t even know. One letter lets them know something is up. 9 times out of 10 it gets rectified. In the cases where it doesn’t get cleaned up, keep the emails you send to them and what you get back. Then contact your local attorney general.
For those looking for the proverbial silver bullet: IT DOES NOT EXIST! NOR WILL IT EVER. I’m going to repeat something I’ve said here before. When I was in the military, we had to learn about terrorism and counter-terrorism measures. Something that was iterated to us over and over and over again was this: If some one is determined enough to get in, they will. You cannot stop them. The best you can hope for is to slow them down enough that you can catch them or you make it so prohibitive that it is not worth the effort.
Problem is, no one wants to hear that. They want to hear that it’s 100% spam proof. There’s only one way to do that. Don’t allow comments. Period. Completely. Delete the comment files from the server. That’s the only way. But then doesn’t that defeat the purpose of blogging? To act as a community.
I’ll be posting some code in a few to help mass delete those comments that have gotten in that do not belong to any posts.
Tg
</soapbox>

Thanks, TG. Mind if I quote you if this issue ever comes up again?

Just as long as it doesn’t become known as “TG’s Quote”…. ;P
Tg

No prob, I’ll save it as “TG’s Soapbox” instead.