Message Board

Installing Honey Pots

HoneyPot for Blogs

Author: J.Iverson (23 Jan 05 4:54pm)

I was wondering if this project could be adapted to help catch the rising problem af spammers attacking blogs. I just don't think the "rel=nofollow" solution is going to bother the spammers much. I hate these low lifes, and would like nothing more than to see them all get tracked down and prosecuted.

Re: HoneyPot for Blogs

Author: M.Prince (23 Jan 05 6:15pm)

I think you're right, and it's something we've talked about. We're going to begin experimenting at some point by putting a hidden comment form on some honey pots and watching any spiders that try to post to it. I'm not sure how many comment spammers we'll catch that way as some (at least currently) seem to be targeting specific blog platforms. The URLs of our honey pot scripts may not be close enough to trick the spiders into trying to post, but we'll work on it.

We've put in calls to a number of the big blogging software providers (Blogger/Google, Movable Type, etc...) and would be happy to talk with anyone from them about whether there's a way that the Project's network of honey pots can be of help.

The other thing that I personally would be interested to know is if there are many (any?) spiders out there doing double duty? Are any of them acting as email harvesters, comment spammers, referral log spammers, and spreading other Internet pollution? I'm not sure the answer, but it seems like it'd make sense that if you were doing one you might be tempted to do all three.

If anyone has a suggestion on how we could create a form that would trick the comment spammers into posting, please get in touch with us and we'd be happy to experiment.