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Newbie/Basic Questions

Reporting Comment Spammer

Author: H.User1325 (28 Aug 10 2:30am)

Associated with a email news letter and web pages I have a comment form. Twice now I have received "comments" from an IP in Amsterdam. The IP is listed as an active comment spammer. How do I report this IP to add to its activity record?

I don't understand the objective of the comment spam. The email address and comment is the same for both examples. Links included in the comment are to google.com

Understanding the mind of a spammer is secondary. I would like to add this comment spammer to the HP data base.

Re: Reporting Comment Spammer

Author: D.Daster (28 Aug 10 9:48am)

What i´ve found regarding the content of comment spammers;

You first see reconnaissance posts. They usually do not contain any meaningful text, instead they seem to test how what they enter is displayed. IE where each text-field is displayed, and they often test multiple linking methods, usually an implicit link, a bbcode link, and a html link. The bot appears to be determining what kind of links it can post; ie can it use tags, does a link appear at all, does anything appear?

Usually, later on after several tests are performed, either that bot, or other bots begin to do real comment spam with real tags and links to real pages.

As far as being able to report the spammers, i don´t think that you can report them as you seem to want to. You can´t just send a message to someone saying this is a spammer, add him to the list, it could pollute the project.
However, instead you can install a honeypot, or quicklinks, and hopefully your spammer will fall into the trap and end up in the database.

Re: Reporting Comment Spammer

Author: H.User1325 (28 Aug 10 5:12pm)

D.D. thanks. That explains the multiply pointless links to google. He/they/it will be disappointed. The comments form is for feed back/suggestions from readers and not displayed.

As for reporting, pollution is a good point. I was looking for something in the order of leaving comments about an IP. Of course I have honeypots installed and also quicklinks. Looking at the log files they seem to have avoided the honeypots (with these IPs).

The IPs that sent the comments are focused on the comment form. Having filtered spiders out of my page hits I don't know where their spider when. I guess naming the page comment.html gave them a clue - given the IQ of spammers we do need to help them <g>.

Re: Reporting Comment Spammer

Author: J.Walker12 (23 Nov 10 3:36am)

I agree, it would be nice to be able to report the baddies that get through.

We all have a 'human check' at the end of the day and its frustrating to know the most successful attacker's IPs but not have any where to pass this info to.

I don't think it would pollute the system. Each contributor could have their suggestions weighted according to their history of correctness.

Are their any form-filling honeypots I could host on my site - my current honey pot seems to target email harvesters - where i feel the real targets should be the comment spammers..

Re: Reporting Comment Spammer

Author: A.E4 (26 Nov 10 12:29am)

Any IP that doesn't go anywhere else I always hand over to a guy over at the forumpostersunion because he then investigates it further. But really .. there are so many spammers we can't hope to catch them all and chances are others will get the same IP spamming them and catch it anyway so not like you are allowing the spammer to continue. It would be different if that IP you are talking about actually did spam something worth reporting .. then there is always a public blacklist submission site like stopforumspam or botscout...

Form filling honeypots .. hmm.. doing a search .. found nothing yet but good reading

http://nedbatchelder.com/text/stopbots.html

http://bbspam.com/2007/08/08/a-sure-fire-end-to-form-filling-bots/

Both are from 2007 however.

Post Edited (26 Nov 10 12:32am)

Re: Reporting Comment Spammer

Author: H.User1325 (26 Nov 10 9:19am)

My motivation initially was a way to take action for those comments left for the newsletter I am running for a non-profit theatre group.

When I look at my HP dashboard I see stats like "Comment spam posts to your site(s): 0" and the section "Comment Spammers You've Helped Catch: * None"

Now that I have started a bulletin Board for the same non-profit my interest is heightened. Unfortunately I believe the saying 'Build it and they will come' is true. So in anticipation I am still wondering how I can feed into those stats.

Re: Reporting Comment Spammer

Author: A.E4 (27 Nov 10 10:00pm)

Perhaps keywords that spammers love so much would attract them? On my forums I have said "No casino links or naked women pictures or links to videos or illegal warez or pharmaceuticals or forex links or anything else that is blatant black hat tactics as it will be seen as spam here".

Many keywords in there are things that spammers spam about .. but I don't know if that will make them come more .. just an idea I had. I have caught some though according to my stats.