Recent comment spam on this site has gotten to be annoying, so I've taken a cue from Simon Willison (who's my new coworker) and set up a comment domain blacklist. Comments that contain a link to any of the blacklisted domains will not be posted.
As on Simon's site, you're welcome to grab my blacklist file once every 24 hours to use it as part of your own comment-spam prevention system.
Comments
Posted by prawnFresh on September 4, 2003, at 12:17 p.m.:
Not sure about this.
Would it not be better to ban them on keywords within the domain name, instead of domains. It would be a lot less work for you.
Posted by Adrian on September 5, 2003, at 5:57 a.m.:
The disadvantage of using keywords is that some spam domains, such as "top-dedicated-servers.com," are impossible to target without introducing the possibility of banning valid domains.
But, yes, this system can certainly be improved. Also check out Adam Kalsey's thoughts on the topic.
Posted by Anil on September 6, 2003, at 1:19 a.m.:
Just to let you and everyone else know, I talked to the affiliate program that the vig-rx spammer was promoting, and they've cut off his account. So removing the cash source should help stem the problem. Long-term, comment authentication will probably be the solution for this.
Posted by Adrian on September 6, 2003, at 1:23 a.m.:
Sweet, Anil. Thanks for the heads-up!
Posted by Chris on September 6, 2003, at 5:45 a.m.:
Good lord! And here I thought I was the only one that Mr. vig-rx was hitting. Thanks Anil, for shutting this guy down...at least for a while.
Posted by Joe Grossberg on September 6, 2003, at 6:10 a.m.:
Why couldn't you just blacklist their IP address?
Posted by ben on September 6, 2003, at 9:28 a.m.:
It is, to say the least, a PITA to keep track of IP addresses. Between dynamic addies serving sites behind business grade connections and the normal consequences of chasing an offensive site from hostingCo to hostingCo, a lot of times it's better to disallow the domains.
Meanwhile, if your webhost doesn't reconcile their serverlogs with their DNS, you get to do a lot more work. :-D
Etc., etc.
Posted by Joe Grossberg on September 6, 2003, at 4:38 p.m.:
Ironically enough, I got another one of those damn zipcode spams. When I went to the ISP's site they said: "In most cases, individuals will have a different IP number each time they log on to the Internet."
Posted by Jay on September 28, 2003, at 1:37 a.m.:
Adrian, check this out and tell me what you think: Killing comment spam dead
Posted by driverdave on November 2, 2003, at 9:29 a.m.:
Wow, that sounds like a never ending battle. Hopefully Google will filter down these links, like they do with guestbook links.
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