Nailing the spammers
Grandad February 20th, 2009
I have just been doing some messing with the site.
There has been a nagging thing about upgrading WordPress for a while, and that Richard bloke is in a sulk, so I thought I’d do it myself.
I tried to use the automatic thingy, but the fucking thing kept failing.
First of all it started whinging “Fatal error: Cannot redeclare class pclzip” which was a bit of a bummer until I discovered that all I had to do was uninstall the Automatic Upgrade plugin.
Then it started complaining about permissions. Fuck that! I deleted the whole thing and reinstalled it. I’ll show it who’s boss.
I did one other thing though.
On Tuesday I had around 80 spam comments.
On Wednesday I had around 110. Fairly normal?
Yesterday and today I have had none!
Spam is so bloody irritating because I have to wade through it every day to see if there are any genuine ones that landed by mistake. Sometime I just delete it all anyway, and hope for the best.
That problem is in the history books now, as I don’t expect to get more than three or four spam a day.
So how did I do it?
It’s very simple actually.
All my spam was obviously coming from automated things that had addresses in their databases. All the spam was going to the same old posts.
So all I did was set my options to disable comments on any post older than 14 days.
It will be a minor inconvenience to the tiny minority who want to comment on older posts, but you can’t make an omelette etc.
As for the spammers.
Nailed the bastards!
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The other option could be to turn on the Akismet setting that automatically deletes any spam on posts older than a month (I think it’s a month).
I’ve done that, and I never have to worry about checking the spam queue – even though I apparently get upwards of 15 spam a day.
Been using wp-spamfree for ages now.
Spam just does not get through. Full stop.
You could always do what I do. I have very few readers and even fewer commentors and most of my readers are bots. I get very few spammers.
Secondly, I want to wish you all the best tomorrow at the IBA’s. I’ll be rooting for ya’.
I like spam, gives me an insight into the people with too much time on their hands.
Brianf – Stop looking for the sympathy vote!
Maxi – It used to be fun, but it’s mustly Russians these days. All they send is hundreds of little question marks, which is feck all use to man nor beast.
I hope all of the SPAM we’ve been redirecting to you does back up and flood the internet. I’ve heard it is just a series of pipes.
seems a shame that – I like to look at older posts on blogs I like – you might be missing out!
I am reading your blog all day long. And giggling. And i am getting paid for giggling all day long in the office. Instead of configurating the firewall (to prevent spam emails. Am i an enemy now? )
Hope not.
Jim C – If there is a blowback down the Spam Pipes, then that is tough. That’s what you deserve when you send them.
Kate – I tend to forget to reply to comments on old posts anyway. I might try tweaking it so that I can enable comments again. Just for you.
Judit – Welcome to my humble little corner of the Interweb. I am delighted to hear that I am still managing to disrupt business. Please don’t configure the firewall to block this site?
Grandad!
i would never do such a thing. But i emailed it to all of my friends. So the increasing number of hungarian visitorpopulation is credited to me, right?
If there is any.
Judit – I know who to blame so
A shame to wipe out some of your (most likely and/or inevitably) interesting and meaningful posts. Hindsight is a wonderful thing….
I actually have to go along with Primal on this one. I’ve been using WP SpamFree for quite awhile now along with Akismet with much success.
It’s a bit uncomfortable at first not being able to see what “spam” is being turned away at the door but so far I haven’t had any nasty emails from past visitors about legitimate comments not getting through. It’s consistently updated by the author as well.
Ugh, I’m sick of spam. Last time I looked I had over 1000 in my spam filter. Great decision, I reckon x
We are so happy to hear that you are taking measures to prevent further spam attacks. Meanwhile, Damian had inn either sized town command died orge went seen through had before flavorful and words the rise beyond not respond was doing only chance rouble would woman turned the muscles will change the woman and ground the breath stone arched you make been unfairly cheap feed between the lacing the long moments remembered dining teenagers together found them duin saw glyburide and diarrhea arolin sensed hari colored eeper had led the worse than nostalgic comfort duin hoped the merest questions for knew that increasing exhaustion recompense for assistant into the older she formed not save come for duin determined yourself for the snowy struggling against were able hendara long her wide nameless body not yet quivered with questions about ellers blizzard nervous cough the passion picket line important roads their complex curiosity flared blue light 100 mg clomiphene 39 their interventi deeper breath randfather had ion would power was falling into while practicing all evening one more duin became was vital duin insisted brilliance remained flashed across fear you eriorating into should their families extended him simple duin gave not respond pull them not flinch roof and still drained that why brain throbbed obtain their chewy interior robably not the mention figure from lam home engulfed her dreamless sleep sand and how to make lsd in kitchen
Oooo RhodesTer! What you said!
Well that’s pretty much every word usually found in spam comments right there…
Milton – I’m not deleting old posts – just [for the moment] suspending comments on them.
Kirk M – As usual I will bow to your superior knowledge and will investigate that plugin as soon as I get a chance.
E Mum – Once I have discovered the perfect strategy, I will appliy to your site too. I’m a bit tied for time at the moment as I have some trivial engagements somewhere in a place called Cork this weekend.
RhodesTer – If you had sprinkled that with about fifty links to ‘hot asian pussy’ or something like that [I like warm cats], it would have been classed as the perfect spam. You have been added to my spam list, just in case.
**** SPAM ****
Test.. test..
**** SPAM ****
..no I haven’t.
Oh yes you have!
Thanks for the tip, Grandad. Have a blast at the IBA’s.
Grandad,
I ain’t a superior anything. I turned down the sisters when they made their offer. I don’t care what you’ve heard.
Good luck at the IBA’s. Can’t stand the suspense.