As I noted on the post update, I thought that I’d come up with a clever way to eliminate a lot of these nonsense-domain spams, by blocking the letter “q” followed by anything other than a “u,” “a,” or a period, comma or space (so we could still write “Iraq”). Here’s now I implemented it: q[ua\ \.\,]
Unfortunately, in testing it, I get a large number of false positives (about 25%) When I see the comments flagged by the new filter, I don’t even see a “q” in the comment. What’s the problem?
Can someone give me a regular expression for my blacklist that would disallow any four-consonant (lower case) string? I’ve been getting a lot of spam lately like this one:
Name: Ryan
Email Address: ron@fromru.comComments:
Well done!
[url=http://cowbtclt.com/gcqj/uqml.html]My homepage[/url] | [url=http://vprqmclp.com/rsyx/vvwl.html]Cool site[/url]
None of these seem to be real domains, so I don’t know what the point is, but they all seem to have at least four consonants in a row. I figure that there are few real words like this, at least in English, so it would keep out the riff raff without impeding genuine commenters.
[Update on Friday night]
OK, as a commenter has pointed out, this would preclude some actual English word (like “strength”). So let’s go for five consonants. My goal is to err on the side of letting good posts through.
[Update on Saturday night]
It doesn’t catch them all, but I did come up with a good trap for them: q[^ua\ \.\,]
Anything with a “q” in it followed by anything other than a “u” or “a” (or a space, period or comma, so we can write “Iraq”) is blocked. A lot of these things have “q”s inserted in them.
[Another update, a few minutes later, after testing]
I’m getting a lot of false positives.
When we removed the soffits in the kitchen, there were a lot of wires in it that had to be rerouted above the joists so we could put in the drywall to the higher ceiling. You can’t just cut and resplice wires–you have to put them inside junction boxes. There were other complications as well.
That’s the story of my weekend. Taking pictures, but probably not posting them until later.
Or is Technorati continually overloaded, and if so, why?
Wheneve I try to get more than a couple pages deep in seeing who’s linking to my site (yes, yes, I admit it–I’m an egomaniac), I get the following message:
Sorry, we couldn’t complete your search because we’re experiencing a high volume of requests right now. Please try again in a minute or add this search to your watchlist to track conversation.
This isn’t an occasional thing. This is every time I try to get more than a couple pages worth of recent links.
Is anyone else experiencing the same problem?
I’ve been getting several comments on ancient posts for the last few days along these lines:
Ive pretty much been doing nothing to speak of. My lifes been bland these days. I havent been up to much. I feel like a void.
They’re all variations on the same theme, and they’re spam in the sense that they have nothing to do with the post subject, but they don’t have a URL they’re advertising, so I can’t blacklist them. Each one has a different IP address. All I can do is delete them individually, and shrug. If I got flooded with them, it would be a royal PITA to deal with. Does anyone have any theories as to the purpose of these? Are they just testing to see how spammable I am before actually hitting me with a payload?
[Update late Monday morning]
Maybe it was test runs. I just got this one, with a blacklistable URL this time:
I haven\’t gotten anything done for a while, but whatever. I can\’t be bothered with anything , but what can I say? Maybe tomorrow. More or less nothing seems worth doing. Thanks for shared info!
The only thing is that this time it was a ping, rather than a comment.
Today, I finish tearing the kitchen apart. Maybe pictures later, if anyone cares.
But we’ve ordered new cabinets for the kitchen, and just found out that they’re going to be here three weeks earlier than previously anticipated. Which mean that we start tearing down walls, because I have to go back to CA Monday morning. No blogging for me.
Well, except for this.
Glenn has been having problems.
Tell me about it.
I’ve given up on them, as far as Usenet service goes. In fact, I gave up and subscribed instead to a dedicated Usenet service, and paid extra for it, even though I’m supposed to get one with my Bellsouth DSL.
I’m about to do it for email as well (though both of these are supposed to be provided as part of my basic, and high-priced service). All week, I’ve been unable to send email on their smtp server (though I’ve been receiving it regularly). The only way I’ve gotten anything out is on my employer’s Microsoft Exchange server (which should be an indication of how bad things are).
The only service that they’ve been able (or willing) to provide me reliably is bandwidth.
Glenn has been having problems.
Tell me about it.
I’ve given up on them, as far as Usenet service goes. In fact, I gave up and subscribed instead to a dedicated Usenet service, and paid extra for it, even though I’m supposed to get one with my Bellsouth DSL.
I’m about to do it for email as well (though both of these are supposed to be provided as part of my basic, and high-priced service). All week, I’ve been unable to send email on their smtp server (though I’ve been receiving it regularly). The only way I’ve gotten anything out is on my employer’s Microsoft Exchange server (which should be an indication of how bad things are).
The only service that they’ve been able (or willing) to provide me reliably is bandwidth.
Glenn has been having problems.
Tell me about it.
I’ve given up on them, as far as Usenet service goes. In fact, I gave up and subscribed instead to a dedicated Usenet service, and paid extra for it, even though I’m supposed to get one with my Bellsouth DSL.
I’m about to do it for email as well (though both of these are supposed to be provided as part of my basic, and high-priced service). All week, I’ve been unable to send email on their smtp server (though I’ve been receiving it regularly). The only way I’ve gotten anything out is on my employer’s Microsoft Exchange server (which should be an indication of how bad things are).
The only service that they’ve been able (or willing) to provide me reliably is bandwidth.