I don’t like spam!

February 3, 2007 by
Filed under: Uncategorized 

My blog is the target of spambots this morning, so I’m taking a couple of additional anti-spam measures: I already run Akismet (it comes with WordPress v2.x) but I’m installing Bad Behaviour (which “prevents spambots from accessing your site”) and a Captcha* plugin (which means you need to enter a word/number to validate your comment). [* Did you know Captcha is an acronym for "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart", trademarked by Carnegie Mellon University?]

Of course this doesn’t help with all the spam I get via email, and then there are the annoying script kiddies trying to hack into my server.

Spammers/crackers should be flogged and then left in the stocks for weeks months ever!

My apologies to real people trying to comment – WordPress was already set to require me to authorise comments from anyone it doesn’t recognise, but now you have to jump through more hoops just because of some kids.

Update: OK, so my research for a Captcha plugin leads me to conclude that Akismet and Bad Behaviour together should be enough; I know Captcha can be a problem for people with vision issues, so I accept it’s not ideal but if this volume of spam continues I might have no choice. :(

At the time of posting, the counter on the left (between the Categories and Gallery) says “Akismet has protected Paul, Kerri and The Boys from 37,694 spam comments”, and at the foot of this page is a new line which says “Bad Behavior has blocked 0 access attempts in the last 7 days” (it’s zero because I’ve only just installed it!).

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Comments

2 Comments on I don’t like spam!

  1. paul on Sun, 4th Feb 2007 8:10 am

    2. Having “Bad Behaviour” set to “strict checking” blocks the tool I use to check for updates (WatchThatPage.com) so I’ve turned it back to the “normal” level; hopefully that will still keep the spammers at bay.

  2. paul on Sun, 4th Feb 2007 8:12 am

    3. Current stats, less than a day after setting this up:

    • Akismet has protected Paul, Kerri and The Boys from 37,824 spam comments.
    • Bad Behavior has blocked 337 access attempts in the last 7 days.

    (As at 8:15am Sunday)

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