Message Board

Newbie/Basic Questions

Getting some spam attempts

Author: M.Boughter (19 Nov 09 12:24pm)

I've been getting some spam attempts to my sites and noticed that some of the IPs are listed here as content spammers. Usually, their threat rating is low (15 on the last one).

What is the threshold and what happens when they cross it?

Re: Getting some spam attempts

Author: M.Prince (21 Nov 09 1:36pm)

The threat levels are logarithmic so every point up is a significant increase in badness. A threat level of 15 is actually pretty bad and indicates something that has been doing consistently naughty behavior.

The threat levels are provided for web admins to be able to make choices about what visitors are allowed onto their site. If you use http:BL then you can check new visitors and block and of the ones who exceed whatever threat level you are comfortable with. This is, to some extent, a process of trial and error that should be unique to each site. You also may want to treat different threats differently:

0-10: warn
10-20: make them pass a CAPTCHA
21 and higher: block

Again, the choice is entirely the web admin's.

Re: Getting some spam attempts

Author: M.Boughter (22 Nov 09 7:51pm)

Thank you for the information.