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zoli
Joined: 27 Jun 2005 Posts: 108
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Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 3:48 pm Post subject: More Trackback spam |
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Is it just me, or does anyone else experience more intense trackback attacks for the last two days? |
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gristgal
Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 209 Location: Mississippi
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Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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A day or so ago John told me (email) that the system has been under heavy spam attack, and they've had to put lots of other stuff on hold to deal with it. (eerie music)
Visualize valiant warriors in chain mail on their spirited chargers circled around to defend a caravan of important and vulnerable personages and treasure (that's us and our blogs), shields up and swords flashing as they fend off swarms of ugly flying things with long talons and vampire-style teeth. :shudder: :ugh:
What you're seeing is what has gotten past our brave defenders. Which means ya gotta pull that poisoned dagger with the jeweled golden haft out of its sheath hidden under your silks and furs, and stab any that get past them to you.
I'm very grateful that we can now control trackbacks through the section at the bottom of the main administrative page - the one you go to automatically when you login. A couple showed up on mine that had innocuous, legitimate-sounding names, but when I looked at the content, they were "spam blogs" That's better than porn spam trackbacks, true, but still undesirable.
I think you can set whether trackbacks have to be approved before they actually appear - or maybe that's the new default? And that's as much as I know about it, sorry. |
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john Site Admin
Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434
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Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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Zoli, it's not just you... Trackback spam has indeed been rising incredibly over the past few months throughout the blogosphere, and the past few weeks have seen a rapid rise. As gristgal knows, the vast majority of our resources over the past few weeks have been devoted to defending against this issue...
We'll be rolling in some additional protections against these kinds of abuse in the short term, and expect that we will soon be able to decrease the amount of spam which gets through to your control panel through additional layers of security. |
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gristgal
Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 209 Location: Mississippi
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Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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Can you call in the Marines?
I just found eleven new spam trackbacks. All different; no dupes. It's gotta be done by automation, right?
This is past weird; it's absurd;
How can it be deterred?
Spam email will lose its crown;
It's a good thing the web won't melt down.
This is a spacing kludgegristgal, © 2006 |
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john Site Admin
Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 12:46 am Post subject: |
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Yes, it is of course done by automated methods which is why we do suggest that most bloggers should set their trackback spam protection to always moderate.
Don't worry, the web won't melt down. |
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zoli
Joined: 27 Jun 2005 Posts: 108
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 9:26 am Post subject: |
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11? Haha, easy life... 52this morning. |
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gristgal
Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 209 Location: Mississippi
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 9:59 am Post subject: |
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Ooooooooooooooooooo.
Owwwwwtch.
My most sincere sympathies.
Didja click the one at the top to delete all? Or do you also have your own legit trackbacks that make you hafta click each one separately? :wince:
John, if the only trackbacks on a given page of them are spam, and we click the box in the header line, will that delete that page only, or all trackbacks?
I'm trying to see if there's a way to speed up the process safely here. |
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zoli
Joined: 27 Jun 2005 Posts: 108
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:11 am Post subject: |
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Sure you can speed it up somewhat. If I have 20+ spam, I select display 25, then click the box at the top, then manually unlick those that are legit. Only the ticked ones will be deleted.
Still, sometimes I manage to ban "friendlies". 2 days ago I found my own domain on the ban list, it must have been those mass deletions.
John, I think two little improvements would help:
- between 5 and 25 perhaps have a display of 10
- option to exlude already posted entries. including them makes sense when moderation is only for suspected spam, but with "moderate all" setting, it only clobbers the pic and there is more manual clicking when on a list of 25 you have 5-8 already posted ones. |
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gristgal
Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 209 Location: Mississippi
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:42 am Post subject: |
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Quote: | Yes, it is of course done by automated methods which is why we do suggest that most bloggers should set their trackback spam protection to always moderate. |
(John, why won't the forum software do an attributed quote? It also acted cranky about quotes period)
I'd like to endorse zoli's request for an intermediate number of items displayed - at least for comments and trackbacks. Often 5 is too few, and 25 is just too many.
Quote: | Don't worry, the web won't melt down. |
No, I know it won't melt down; that's why I phrased it as I did. I'm aware of the multi-nodal redundancy built into it back when it was ARPAnet, and it's only been made more so over the years. We mostly don't understand just how "hardened" it was made from the very beginning, but that's because so few understand what it was designed for, and how it came into being.
I did use it for email with friends at other campuses back in the Late Middle Ages (1980s), when a lot of big (mostly public) universities came online. I remember that there were three connected campuses in Michigan. The only foreign universities I recall that were accessible to us via the network (that I recall) were the University of Manitoba (which was then a center where a lot of mainframe software was written, but probably not as much as was written at the University of Michigan), some place in the UK, and some university in South Africa (the ZA connection seems weird, given the political climate of the day).
BC=Before Computer networking, i.e., from the earliest computers in the 1940s
01 AC=After Computer networking, i.e., whatever year in the 60s the network was created, back when it was only a few miles of "pipe" from one campus to one other campus. I think one end was at Lawrence-Livermore - or maybe at JPL, and the other at UCLA.
Oh, how the world has changed! |
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john Site Admin
Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434
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Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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option to exlude already posted entries. including them makes sense when moderation is only for suspected spam, but with "moderate all" setting, it only clobbers the pic and there is more manual clicking when on a list of 25 you have 5-8 already posted ones.
That's a good suggestion. Noted.
I'd like to endorse zoli's request for an intermediate number of items displayed - at least for comments and trackbacks. Often 5 is too few, and 25 is just too many.
Unfortunately the trackback spam problem is growing so fast that this issue (that you sometimes find yourself with 15 trackbacks so no choice between 5 and 25 in the dropdown menu is inconvenient) is not likely to be an issue for you for very long: the spammers are increasing their velocity so rapidly that you'll soon be asking why is there no 100 or 250 in the dropdown menu, and that is the problem we are working hardest to solve... Thousands of spams daily are already being prevented from appearing in your control panel, we're working to reduce the amount of spams that get through this first layer of defense.
why won't the forum software do an attributed quote? It also acted cranky about quotes period
This latest upgrade to the phpBB forum software we use here has some glitches, it seems. |
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