• There seems to be a bot posting in my blog. A comment by “online poker” pops up immediately when I post entries. The site is a poker site and the email is invalid. There really is no other explanation IMO. I tried using moderating the site, but the comment gets through anyway.
    How can I get rid of this vile abomination?

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
  • Thread Starter Anonymous

    I have the exact same problem….tried the WP blacklister but it doesn’t block it and it has an ever-changing IP address……

    Just try a search for comment spam here on the forum

    Heh, I got plagued by this idiot Texas too. I deleted the entry in: Options> Writing> update services. I think it was pingomatic or something like that.
    In addition, I entered “closed” in the wp-posts file.
    Luckily, I don’t take comments in my blog anyway, so this guys not a problem.
    knotty

    I tried to turnoff commenting but it didnt seem to work (unless I did the wrong thing….)
    Looks like Im going to IP block him as it appears to be the same IP (comes out of Japapn so I dont believe I will be blocking a friend)
    Its just annoying that in the time it takes to actually post an entry, its gets commented!

    Thread Starter Anonymous

    I missed the post about APblacklist. Can anyone help me find it? I just got slammed with these Poker jokers.
    QM

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Knotty, deleting pingomatic or any sites to ping from the Update Services field means that you blog will never send out notification to the popular blog update services. Many people subscribe to these services to receive an email notifying them of which blogs were updated that day. This is widely used by individuals who are too busy to watch RSS feeds all day. Unfortunately, bots also watch these update services and attack blogs as soon as they post. Disabling your update services will get rid of a lot of SPAM bots, but it will also alienate a lot of readers. I prefer to keep this and IP blocking as last resorts. Why keep IP blocking as a last resort? Because unless the IP list is continually maintained, you may end up blocking future or current readers as well. Rarely do spammers ever keep a unique IP, and if they do, they don’t keep it for more than a week. Usually, the spammer’s IP address will be dealt out to another “innocent” client the next week. One day, that could be you and you’d never be able to change it or fix anything until you receive a new IP (imagine how your readers would feel if that happened to them…a loyal reader suddenly blocked). An IP address block should only be used to stop a SPAM flood, and then deleted after 24 hours. Really, the best way (if you don’t mind giving control over to something other than yourself) is to use WPBlacklist to delete entries posted with a specific URL. Yes, this isn’t a 100% end-all cure. The spammer could always buy a new domain name, but at least he has to pay more money for it.

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Quilly, if you’re talking about WPBlacklist, …just look above your post…it’s not that hard.

    Yes your right, I’m cutting myself off from the blog world. I just downloaded the lastest blacklist, I have to install it. Once that’s done, I’ll turn on the pingomatic and comments again for the posts I wish comments on.
    I’m just a week into WP and just couldn’t stand this Texas guy putting a comment each time I run say a test.
    Thanks for the great tips,
    knotty

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Tristan, try downloading the now called “nospam.php” (fka wp-comments-post.php) to your computer, rename it there to something entirely unrelated to “comment” and “spam”, upload it to your server, and delete “nospam.php” (fka wp-comments-post.php) manually. Some more intelligent bots may search for files with “comment” or “spam” in their name to continue to post SPAM comments. As for disabling update services, read my large post, two above yours. Disabling update services is generally not a good idea as it may alienate some readers.

    thaanks..will try!!
    dont really mind if I alienate readers as its really just for my students and teachers so they already know about the site!!
    why do people do this? Why cant they use their powers for good??
    LOL

    macmanx…you are a champion!!
    It appears to have worked.
    I was just renaming the file on the server, not downloading then uploading.
    Fingers crossed that this holds!!!
    guessing your a fellow mac head!!
    Thanks again!
    BTW…may re-enter the update services again. What is the default site? Or any recommended sites?
    Thanks again!

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    I hope that holds, it’s been working for the past week on mine. Yep, I’m a fellow mac head. ^_^ I have been for many years. The default update service is: https://rpc.pingomatic.com/ and I highly recommend it since it pings all of my recommended update services.
    P.S. In case anyone is wondering, here’s an article that goes into detail about why IP banning is a bad idea and I do suggest that everyone at least read the first two paragraphs. https://kalsey.com/2004/02/why_ip_banning_is_useless/

    Thread Starter Anonymous


    $url = trim(strip_tags($_POST['url']));
    if (strpos($url,"poker") !== false) { die("Denied");}
    if (strpos($url,"ottawavalley") !== false) { die("Denied");}

    I’ve put in a few of these lines in my wp-comments-post.php that look for those keywords in the url field. It can be attached to the other fields as well. This has killed most of the attacks I’ve gotten lately by not even getting the comment into my database. Even when the comments are changing, these guys want certain words in the URLs to get their search rankings up.
    It’d be nice if WP had a field that was keywords for moderation, and keywords to immediately kill.
    Although I’m posting this after not visiting WP for a while so maybe things have changed….

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    It is a feature in WP v1.2.x. Look in Options/Discussions. As for automatically deleting them, do a search around the forums, the solution is here.

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
  • The topic ‘A bot is commenting in my blug’ is closed to new replies.