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Not really back just yet, but.

I spent an hour I don’t have clearing 400-some-odd pieces of comment spam off the pier. We run Jay Allen’s invaluable MT-Blacklist hereabouts, but this stuff all got past it. —I’m wondering if we have some smarter monkeys in the house.

The comment text was all scraped out of an article on how memory stacks work. The names were all first names, common enough to have been lifted off a popular baby name list. The email addresses and IP addresses were all different. And there were dozens of URLs linked, none of which had made it onto the MT-Blacklist master list yet. Some of them were misspellings or variant spellings of others. I didn’t bother trying to visit any, but I’m thinking most of the URLs were the equivalent of chaff, thrown up to waste time and effort so that maybe somebody would sigh and throw up their hands and just leave the 400-some-odd links up till tomorrow, maybe, giving Google enough time to register the link.

Jay’s currently travelling, and anyway I’m not too sure how to verify which of my entries aren’t on his master list yet to submit them officially. (I could figure it out, but there’s work yet to do, and sleep.) I haven’t seen anyone else hit with a chaff attack yet—at least, no one on my short list of usual suspects who’ve shared spam attacks with me in the past—but if you do suddenly find yourself with 400-some-odd new pieces of comment spam full of chaff, here’s my updated blacklist.

Oy.

Oh, while I’ve got your attention: the Fiery Furnaces and the Books.

  1. Kevin Moore    Jan 12, 08:32 am    #
    I never successfully installed Blacklist. I tried a whole day of getting it to bring up the configuration page, but nada. And I tried both methods of recommended installation. Then the baby entered my life and took over, so I haven't found time to get back to it. Now I just delete the comments as they pop up and close the comments section for each entry they invade. Tedious and annoying, but what else am I gonna do?

    Just kvetchin'.

  2. Making Light    Jan 12, 03:21 pm    #
    Another spam attack
    Making Light and Electrolite are under attack again (see previous round), and it’s aggressive—over 50 hits in the last hour,...

  3. pericat    Jan 12, 03:38 pm    #
    Kip, thanks for sharing your updated blacklist! You may have saved me quite a bit of tedious work.

  4. J. Pinkham    Jan 12, 09:39 pm    #
    Maybe you pissed off The Lawnmower Man...

  5. Jonathan Petrerson    Jan 13, 08:46 am    #
    I too got hammered. Am still in the process of cleaning up, the new spams are in the hundreds. I'm half temped to just go into MySql and blow up the comments database, but I feel pretty sure that will do attrocious things to my MT installation.

    CRAP!

    Thanks for your updated list, I'm merging it now.

  6. --k.    Jan 13, 10:12 am    #
    Blacklisting ain't the be-all and end-all, as I'm discovering. No time for a post right now, but hie thee hence immediately to Making Light and read the comments therein (especially those from Burningbird's Shelley Powers)--much thought-provoking goodness that will fill your heart with trepidation at the whole new brands of meaningless mischief one's fellow humans have got up to.

  7. Gerard Van der Leun    Jan 13, 11:46 am    #
    After receiving over 3000 comment spams in the last day, I've just killed comments off completely. Here's why:

    http://www.americandigest.org/mt-archives/000834.html

  8. scribblingwoman    Jan 26, 08:29 am    #
    Spam and chips, spam and sausages
    How exciting! After reading of other bloggers' irritation (here and here and here, for starters), I have finally arrived: I...

  9. scribblingwoman    Jan 26, 08:43 am    #
    Spam and chips, spam and sausages
    How exciting! After reading of other bloggers' irritation with comment spam (here and here and here, for starters), I have...

  10. scribblingwoman    Jan 26, 08:44 am    #
    Spam and chips, spam and sausages
    How exciting! After reading of other bloggers' irritation with comment spam (here and here and here, for starters), I have...

  11. Christian    Feb 2, 05:30 pm    #
    Jonathan, Do I know you?
    Have you ever been to St Louis?
    If yes, hit me up on ICQ: 136547585.
    If not - sorry you just remind me of someone.
    regards,
    Chris

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