fracking spammers

[piranha]

i've temporarily set a captcha for anonymous commenters because there seems to be a massive spam run right now, and i'm tired of deleting the screened crap. if that doesn't stop it, i'll turn off anon commenting altogether for the time being -- anyone who wants to can get a code from me to create a journal journal creation is free and easy.

Comments

[erik]

No codes required right now. Which is probably part of the problem, and you may want to mention to someone official-ish that you're having big trouble; denise said she was inclined to keep it open-enrolement as long as the spam stayed manageable. So data that there are users who are experiencing heavy spam will be useful to her.

I'm not seeing any spam on my journal, but then most of my posts are flocked.

[piranha]

man, i am so not up-to-date on what's happening anywhere in the world. *wry grin*. thanks; yeah, that would explain the spam explosion.

the anti-spam team will know that i had a lot of spam, since i marked every one of them.

"man, i am so not up-to-date on what's happening anywhere in the world."

[erik]

Step away from the minecraft. It will still be there when you return.

Re: "man, i am so not up-to-date on what's happening anywhere in the world."

[piranha]

*heh*. i am not even playing that much minecraft right now! i am writing code to enhance my play, *grin*.

[synecdochic]

It sounds like what piranha is getting is anonymous spam, not logged-in-user spam, so that wouldn't change even if invites went back on. It's a testing campaign to see whether a particular forum is highly google-visible and whether the people behind it are vigilant in removing spam. It tends to hit individuals pretty heavily for a week or so and then move on. (We block the IPs behind it, but they have endless variations.)

[frith]

You are getting spam here, on Dreamwidth, or on LJ? I get no spam on DreamWidth, ever. On Livejournal I get friended by fake journals, but that's about it. Here on DreamWidth, anonymous posting on my journal is free and open. No captcha, no logging IP's, nada, just come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be. /earworm

So, no spam. Why? Because I've set privacy to not include my journal in search engine results. Go here and tick the box. For good measure, I've also removed my journal from on-site searches, but people granted access to my journal (which is everyone) are allowed to search it. Spammers want to increase the number of hits they get in Google searches for their product. Lots of hits means the product moves to #1 in Google results. It's a fake popularity swindle. Post product links in millions of journals and bang, instant fake popularity.

A lot of spam is a short text with spelling errors -- that's a spammer testing software. The spelling error makes it a unique search result on Google.

So, be cryptic. If the predators can't find you, you don't have to waste energy fighting them off. ^_^

[liv]

The pattern with spam on DW is that it seems to hammer one or two specific journals a week. That means most people don't see any spam at all, but the couple of people who are unlucky (like piranha this week) get loads.

I don't think the bots are sophisticated enough to be able to tell which journals are included in search engine results. Yes, they do want to improve their Googlejuice, but basically they'll spew their sewage on any journal where comments get published and not deleted. I think the reason you get no spam is not because of you settings, but because you've been lucky so far not to be targeted.

[frith]

It's true that I have not thought of how spammers find journals in the first place.

[piranha]

here on DW. i no longer use LJ at all. it just occasionally happens; it has before, and it probably will again. i've dealt with spam since the days of serdar argic on usenet; i don't expect it to ever change while it remains profitable -- it's the price we pay for open, cheap internet without censorship. i just got tired of deleting 20 of the stupid things in a row.

i know how to hide my journal from search engines, but that would throw the baby out with the bathwater. i want searches to find my journal if somebody is looking for something i can help them with. and i refuse to change the availability of my journal to suit spammers; that would be giving in, and i'll be damned if i do that. i never munged my email address either.

besides, as liv said, it's not clear that being searchable publicly draws more spammers than not onto journalling sites. i've gotten spam to journals elsewhere that are totally private.

but thank you for trying to help! that's always appreciated.

[frith]

You're welcome. Your motives are pure and cool, and for that I salute you! 8^)