I know we have issues with our comments dissapearing after entry. The site’s Spam Filter is…. well, overzealous in some aspects and still lets some spam through. However, even logged on as an admin, some of our comments are caught in the filter. So, we browse the comments flagged as spam and “de-spam” legitimate comments, even those by our propaghanda spewing trolls. The trick is to de-spam the comments before the filter deletes them.
This filter fills up with 50 messages/links/trackbacks or so an hour. For your enjoyment, here are some of the stupid items we get. I have no idea what the perveyors of spam think they accomplish with these “adds”. As with telemarketers, all these “adds” do is make me LESS inclined to buy their products.
While we have the links these spammers use. It is probably best not to click them so I will not post them. Spam usually comes in groups with similar email addresses. One hour was heavy on the porn, insurance, and typing that looked like old style line noise. The next hour will be different, but no less in volume or pattern.
First we have the common “Compliment” spam:
From: pass my drug test…
That\’s a really interesting article….
Uh, thanks. Now go away.
From: visit
%-) genuinely interested by this website
This and five others were from email addresses containing random letter/number combinations.
From: real kasino
Hello, I’m a regular visitor to your site so i finally decided its time to sign your guestbook, so here i sign !
Which would mean something if we had a guestbook I guess……
The “Random Keyboard” spam:
From: eoxnqdhgc mnqdglief.
dxipvt anupd xjbk hsxizyoqa msqzjdoi gljcpyrek watiqr
I am sure on some planet, that makes sense. The spammer’s problem is, this is Earth.
Insurance Sales
From: aaa home owner insurance.
dislocating dispense!engrave flawed mike.understated …
I am sure they are paying this spammer to sell something, but I do not know what.
Scam vacation sites.
From: Vacation Rental Vacation Package Cruise Travel
I didn’t agree with you first, but last paragraph makes sense for me…
After falling for this scam, everything will make sense for the victim when the bill arrives.
Drug Sales (Medical ones… get your mind off the street corner)
From: Buy tramadol online best prices limited time off.
Buy tramadol online save wholesale price yep. Tramadol online. Buy tramadol at a cheap price online. Tramadol hci online buy cheap tramadol hci online. Buy cheap tramadol at online drug store….
Ok, I take back the mind on the street corner remark. Tramadol is a narcotic pain reliever with a list of side effects and warnings a mile long. I do not think one can get this online, but I could be wrong.
But here is another drug.
From: Cheapest cialis.
Cheapest cialis. Cheapest generic cialis….
Last, least, but appropriate following the last add; the sex adds:
From “Anal Sex Anal Insertions Anal Sex Videos…”
I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view…
Umm, sure, same here about the lack of agreement.
So there you have it. This fills our spam filter daily and your comments sometimes get sucked into them. We look at the filter often to see if any comments are captured and try to keep them where they sould go.
The fact that some companies may actually be paying to spread this stuff is another matter.
Spam….my arch nemesis. I hate em’
Also, whenever I come onto FA, Firefox always freezes up for about 10-15 seconds. This has been a long-term problem whenever I visit FA.
Hmmm… I do not have that issue. Maybe there is a plug-in you have for FF that I am not running. I keep mine pretty bare bones. Other than that, I have no idea why your FF locks up for that time. I am still using Windows XP, so if you have Vista, it may behave differently (I miss Windows 98 and DOS….).
My email spam filter is just as tricky. One of Chris’s emails got caught in the filter today even though his other email came through just fine. I have to remind myself to go and check the spam box so frequently sometimes I wonder what the point of having it is?
Bronze….do you see what is loading when it freezes like that? A certain plugin or something?
FA performs a little strangely (slowly too) for me as well.
I am running Firefox 3 beta 5 so that may or may not be a factor.
The only extension I am running is script blocker but I have it set to allow FA.
I can keep an eye it and see if I can give you more specific info if you want.
Keep up the good work guys fighting SPAM is an endless job. It appears the only time my posts have gotten caught in the filter have been when there are links in my submission. Just an observation.
The Post Submission should be a great addition.
If you could Aye….probably a plugin that is holding everything up.
Not using Vista (are you crazy?) and I don’t see any plug-in issues. The only thing I could think of that it might be was Ad-Block, but I disabled it and it still acted the same way. I’m running the latest version of FF (not beta).
Interestingly, my status bar shows the page going between FA and Google VERY rapidly (like 3-4 times a second), like it’s frozen between the two (or searching). Very weird!
That makes you the second one with a Google/FA issue. I do not have the Google toolbar attached to my FF, just Yahoo.
Ok, I do not know why it is happening. It is annoying as heck, but there must be some addware, a plug-in within FF and Google (FFs usual homepage) or a module that relays information back to Google or another application.
Sorry about the Vista thing. I was wondering if you had a system which came with it. They offered it “free” to me and I refused.
I dread buying my next computer….
On the other hand, I am glad that this thread has some uses. I was just PO’d at the ammount of spam we get and wanted to share the stupidity we get to see.
My status bar does the exact same thing.
Flashes back and forth between Google and FA.
Says loading/transferring data or something of that nature. I am at work at the moment so I cannot check for sure.
I have only added Script Blocker to the Firefox beta version that I am using. Everything else is standard.
I got notification of an update being available this morning but have not loaded it yet.
We’ll see if anything changes with that.
Ok, I know what that is. Its the blogroll plugin. It checks google for the latest updated blogs and puts them on top. Gonna disable it and look for a better blogroll plugin. thx guys.
Curt,
That’s better already.
Thanks.
Yeah, that seemed to fix it for me too. Thx Curt!
Chris, luckily for me Dell still offers XP on new computers, so that’s what I stuck with when I bought this new one this past winter.
Vista sucks!
P.S. Google sucks too!