I’ve had it with Movable Type comment spam blitzkriegs dropping available server CPU to 0 and broadsiding web and mail services. Last night we endured a comment spam attack so severe it knocked out the mail server overnight. If you’ve followed this space for a while, you know I’ve tried virtually every trick and upgrade at my disposal to deal with the problem. But it just keeps getting worse.
A few minutes ago, I switched this weblog to a comment-registration-required system. I know this will discourage a percentage (probably a good percentage) of casual comments, and that’s a bummer. But TypeKey registration is trivially easy, and your registration will work at any TypeKey-enabled blog on the internet.
I’ve also just announced the new comment registration policy on status.birdhouse and to the owners of our four most intensive MT users.
My hatred of spammers is boundless and bottomless.
I found adding an obvious password to the comment form solved comment spamming for my family blog. For example here you could have: “What kind of house?” and the answer could be “bird”. It allows humans slightly in-the-know to still comment.
I used the technique described here:
http://www.freemoby.com/index.php?p=60
The funny thing is, this is poor viral behavior. I hate to give spammers ideas, but damn, a successful virus allows its host to live so that that host can spread the virus.
Ebola kills in days. HIV takes years.
Ebola outbreaks are easily contained. HIV is a global scourge. This is not coincidence.
If your comment spam floods end up being nothing more than a brute force DDoS for the host, you will not be successful. Look around this site if you need proof of the veracity of my claim.
But hey, I doubt comment spammers are any smarter than the average domestic slime mold.
I don’t much care for typekey. The problems I was having registering an account turned out to be the result of a too-long password, and the server was returning a buffer overflow message. Sloppy coding, that. But I got it to work, no thanks to their tech support.
-Jim
TypeKey Addendum:
The password I was giving typekey in the registration process was accepted by the web interface, but the confirmation link gave me a buffer overflow message. THAT’s what was sloppy.
-Jim