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Bugs & Development

Error in ASP code

Author: T.Gaunt (24 Apr 07 5:32pm)

I've just installed the new comment spam catcher page and on checking it, the page displays the error:

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a01c9'

This key is already associated with an element of this collection

/lecturer.asp, line 618

Is this a known issue?

Tim

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: M.Prince (25 Apr 07 4:31am)

Hmmm... you're the first to report it. We'll check it out, although we're not much of an ASP shop so it may take some time. Anyone out there an ASP expert willing to chime in??

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: M.Towler (25 Apr 07 6:48am)

*EDIT* Right i have downloaded the ASP honeypot and i will be looking through the code over the next few days as i am away at the weekend

Post Edited (26 Apr 07 9:01am)

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: M.Paugh (26 Apr 07 11:53am)

I'm getting exactly the same error. My honeypot used to work but I noticed I was getting 0 spammer hits for last few months so I finally tried hitting my honeypot directly and that's when I discovered it is now issuing the above error. Perhaps this is due to an IIS update because it used to be working. I don't know if that will help you in finding the error, but I thought I would mention it.

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: L.Holloway (26 Apr 07 2:05pm)

Yup, looks our ASP pot is due for a major revamp soon.

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: C.Tilley (28 Apr 07 7:16am)

It looks to me like the arr array is trying to set a duplicate key value, but I cannot debug the script to be sure of the contents without it complaining over the checksum.

I would also like to request that someone clean up the reams of global variables being used, that aren't declared and aren't terminated at the end of the script. Please proceduralise this!

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: J.Kinney (28 Apr 07 2:18pm)

The transcribeResponse function was designed to parse a string containing simple name/value pairs, where the pairs are separated by chr(10) and the name and value separated by the "=" character. But the data being handled is too complicated for this function. It contains a form and objects that have attributes, each attribute being a name/value pair. This is how the function parses the data:

Arr(8): <input type="text" name="SubjectLabel"><br>
pieces(0): <input type
pieces(1): "text" name="SubjectLabel"><br>
Arr(9): <textarea name="TheComment"></textarea><br>
pieces(0): <textarea name
pieces(1): "TheComment"></textarea><br>
Arr(10): <input type="text" name="CompanyName"><br>
pieces(0): <input type
pieces(1): "text" name="CompanyName"><br>

The code fails with it tries to add a second pieces(0) with the value of "<input type".

Post Edited (28 Apr 07 2:21pm)

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: M.Prince (28 Apr 07 3:07pm)

Ah ha!

We were thinking it was some update to ASP that broke the code. In fact, it was an error caused when we started handing out trap forms to catch comment spammers.

On our end I think we can change what is returned from our servers in order to go back to a simpler time for the ASP installations.

However, it would be GREAT to get an updated ASP honey pot script that could support not only the more complex data being returned, but also POST data. Right now, the forms we hand back all do submits as GETs. That's not ideal for a lot of reasons. The PHP honey pot is the only one that has been updated in order to handle POSTs.

Any one up for helping with this? In-house ASP/IIS are definitely weaknesses on our team.

Thanks for tracking it down. We'll get it fixed ASaP. ;-)

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: J.Kinney (28 Apr 07 11:15pm)

Can you explain in general what we're attempting to do here? What do you want to post and what do you want to do with the response?

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: M.Prince (29 Apr 07 12:57am)

So we began to track comment spammers. The way we do this is by putting a form on the honey pot page and watching what gets posted to it. However, because the original honey pots weren't designed to listen for POSTs, but we wanted to leverage the existing network, we came up with a not-entirely-perfect, but fairly good solution.

First, we updated the PHP script so that it can listen for POSTs. New PHP installations will watch for POSTs back to themselves and then relay that information on to our servers.

Second, for honey pots that didn't have POST-handing, we still get a copy of the URL requested for every GET. So for those honey pots we handed out forms with a method of GET instead of POST. For example:

<form action="/honeypot.asp" method="GET" id="whatever" name="whatever">

When a comment spammer submits that form the contents of the fields are turned into GET variables and a GET request is submitted. This request is passed on to our servers by all current implementations of the honey pot script so we can record it.

The problem is that GETs appear in peoples logs. And we're all curious when something strange appears in our log and so we sometimes click on it. That then means that the clicker gets reported as a comment spammer when, really, they're just the server admin. Bad.

We've built some back-end checking to limit the risk of this, but our intent is to slowly convert all the honey pots over to the new POST-handing kind. Since we're not ASP experts, your help doing so would be great. If you want to see an example that does it just how we want it, download a PHP-based honey pot and check out the code. Very straight forward. Should only be a line or two more of code (not counting whatever needs to be fixed in order to make it not break when we hand back more complex content).

Until then, we're going to revert the ASP honey pots back to the old version. That should cause them to all start working again. But if anyone's able to modify the ASP code, we'll incorporate a new version.

Thanks!
Matthew.

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: M.Towler (1 May 07 4:31am)

i will definatly be up for this Mr. Prince just let me know

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: A.Kucher (4 May 07 12:05pm)

>Until then, we're going to revert the ASP honey pots back to the old >version. That should cause them to all start working again.

I´ve just installed the script (DL 2 days ago) and receive the same error (800a01c9).
The script is in the root directory; Windows 2000 Server, IIS5, ASP.NET 2.0

Re: Error in ASP code

Author: C.Tilley (16 May 07 8:52am)

I have literally just downloaded the script again, and I concur with M. Kucher, the same error is presenting. Has the asp code been reverted?