Chapter 2 - In which I get sucked into the fray...
I got my first comment spam last night. This annoys me to no end - not like the perps really care - and I now have to take some measures that I've wanted to avoid.
First, anonymous commenting is now a thing of the past. I don't get that many comments in the first place but now, if you wanna comment you gotta sign up. This certainly isn't the mother-of-all-spam-killers but it's a start - at least until enough people do it so the spammers have to automate it.
I'll likely hold off on making more changes until I see how effective this is, but other things might include upping the speed limit (time between subsequent comments), IP banning or even turning comments off altogether save on certain posts.
Of course, there's always tracking them down and cutting their brake lines... :-)
Comments
Re: Chapter 2 - In which I get sucked into the fray...
If you find an effective way to traceroute back to the content spammers, I'd be delighted to join you in cutting some brake lines. I've made a point, however, not to mention them in my blog, as they seem to take perverse pleasure in attacking such articles very specifically. The kind of stuff that shows up in these comments *every day* is really quite alarming. The idea that there are people who respond to this kind of advertising is even more alarming. I mean, ewwwwwwww.