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Trackback Spam: Very fed up!
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adameason



Joined: 04 Mar 2005
Posts: 17
Location: Bournemouth, Dorset, UK

PostPosted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 2:57 am    Post subject: Trackback Spam: Very fed up! Reply with quote

Ok, I am losing my patience with trackback spam.

Not so much that I am getting it each day, but the fact that my blog seems to dislike performing the "delete and block" function.

It seems to take an age to respond and then I get an error 505 or something similar. This happens every other day and when I can't delete and block these spammers, more of it piles up on my site.

Is anyone else facing this issue? Is there anything that can be done? If so, I would love to hear of it.

What's more, the blog often highlights my own trackbacks as spam and not any of the ones for ---------, hoodia, casinos and amateur that keep finding their way on to my site.

Any ideas anyone because it is reaching a stage....

Many thanks, Adam.
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:54 am    Post subject: Re: Trackback Spam: Very fed up! Reply with quote

It seems to take an age to respond and then I get an error 505 or something similar. This happens every other day and when I can't delete and block these spammers, more of it piles up on my site.

I haven't seen this at all and I use this function a dozen times a day, nor have we had any customers mention this... If you see an error deleting trackbacks, can you please send us a report next time it happens and include the exact time the error occurred and the exact text of whatever error message you see? It would be very helpful to determining what you might be seeing.

What's more, the blog often highlights my own trackbacks as spam and not any of the ones for ---------, hoodia, casinos and amateur that keep finding their way on to my site.

That shouldn't happen, sounds like we need to update the algorithms. I'll point this out to our developers and hopefully a future release will update the filters so they don't flag your own trackbacks as spam.

Just FYI, we're already deleting an extremely high number of trackbacks (in some cases more than 90%) before they even reach your blog, that should give you an idea of the sheer magnitude of this problem. Trackback is an open and insecure (and in retrospect poorly desgned) protocol, and the spammers are taking advantage of this. Trackback spam makes email spam look like a minor annoyance.

At this point in time, I recommend to any blogger on any platform to moderate trackbacks. On our platform, you can enable various levels of moderation, the Spam Protection Settings available from the Settings & Security tab provide you with options for Trackback Moderation. I would suggest you enable the level of moderation you are most comfortable with.
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adameason



Joined: 04 Mar 2005
Posts: 17
Location: Bournemouth, Dorset, UK

PostPosted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:59 am    Post subject: Many thanks. Reply with quote

John,

Many thanks for your advice. I am going to play around with my trackback settings I think.

I understand how hard you all work with these kinds of complaints and trackback spam really is a bane.

The next time the Delete and Block function goes awry, I will forward the entire thing on to you for you to have a look at.

Really appreciate your time, thanks.

Adam.
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abacquer



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 193

PostPosted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 1:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use the function several times a day. And I would appreciate it if I didn't have to. I would like no further trackbacks allowed on my blog. Period. I switched it off awhile back, but apparently the existing articles have to be visited one at a time and changed by hand to not accept trackbacks, which is silly.

Can someone run a database query for me and just set them all?

Thanks! Smile
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 3:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

...apparently the existing articles have to be visited one at a time and changed by hand to not accept trackbacks, which is silly.

Yes, the requirement for a master switch to turn off all trackbacks was not anticipated. This was already on our feature enhancement request list, so we are aware that some of our users desire this feature. I will remind the product managers of the desirability of this feature.

Can someone run a database query for me and just set them all?

Unfortunately there are some pretty strict rules we must follow with respect to database manipulation, and it wouldn't be possible to do something like this.

I just looked at your blog and I see your Trackback Moderation settings (Settings & Security >> Publishing Defaults >> Spam Protection Setttings) are set to Never moderate...

If you just want to disallow all incoming trackbacks from ever appearing on your blog, just set this to Always moderate. The net effect will be just that: no incoming trackbacks will appear on your blog. You don't need to worry about clearing out the queue, there is no reason to do so. It's perfectly fine to set this to Always moderate and be done with it. The queue does not count towards any quotas or anything like that, so it's quite OK to let them pile up in there...

But we do realize you what you are asking for and why your request is different than the above solution and we will see what we can do about providing a solution more to your liking in the future.
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abacquer



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 193

PostPosted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 3:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

john wrote:
...I just looked at your blog and I see your Trackback Moderation settings (Settings & Security >> Publishing Defaults >> Spam Protection Setttings) are set to Never moderate...

If you just want to disallow all incoming trackbacks from ever appearing on your blog, just set this to Always moderate. The net effect will be just that: no incoming trackbacks will appear on your blog. You don't need to worry about clearing out the queue, there is no reason to do so. It's perfectly fine to set this to Always moderate and be done with it. The queue does not count towards any quotas or anything like that, so it's quite OK to let them pile up in there...


Okay, but if I set it to always moderate, will I receive an e-mail message periodically, instructing me that I've received new trackbacks I should moderate?
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 3:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Unfortunately yes, so you would have to filter them to the trash if you didn't want to see them.
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abacquer



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 193

PostPosted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 8:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well then, that's why it's set to "Never Moderate". If I had a trainable Bayesian spam-filter for trackbacks, then I'd be interested in moderating them, such that the nonspam ones would be allowed through and the spam ones would be held up (without receiving emails). But nobody I know is even using trackbacks anymore, precisely because spammers have turned it into a waste of time.

What I can tell you is that I can look at a trackback and I know *instantly* that it is spam. If I can do it, a trainable trackback filter should be able to do it with 95% or better accuracy. Blocking by IP does not work, unfortunately, whereas filtering on the word "phentermine"...

If I had my druthers this is how I'd want my trackback system to work:

1. trackback received
2. blocked IP? (yes) --> delete
3. compute likelihood of spam through bayesian analysis
4. greater than (configurable) tolerance level? (yes) --> store in moderation location, (do NOT send emails <-- default, configurable)
5. otherwise, permit through (and SEND email <-- default, configurable)

Thus I don't get emails for what is considered to be spam, I get emails for what is NOT considered to be spam (thus reducing the amount of work I have to do).

Then when viewing a trackback from the admin control panel, you'd need two buttons "SPAM" and "NOT SPAM". This is the training mechanism, clicking one of these buttons modifies my bayesian filter, making it smarter, and also moves the trackback to and from the moderation location. I could visit the moderation location every few days and check for stuff which is misclassified and have trackbacks in there expire after a configurable timeframe.

The bayesian filter information, unfortunately, would need to be specific to each user... my definition of spam is different than your definition. But bayesian filtering (a) works and (b) is well documented. My spam email woes ended the day I installed a bayesian email filter, and it's right 99.9% of the time, after training.

In the meantime, in the absence of my own personal bayesian trackback filter, and since I don't want my inbox flooded with e-mails that I need to filter out (in which case I might miss the rare legitimate trackback), I want all trackbacks shut off since more than 99.99% of the trackbacks I get are spam. At present I don't have that option either, so I'm left with simply ignoring the problem while my bandwidth bill goes up (I have articles that get 2 or 3 trackbacks a day, every day, thus getting longer and longer and having more of a bandwidth footprint), and then periodically (and painstakingly) going through and eliminating all the trackbacks using a list that will only display a limited number at a time and won't let me specify a date range and which isn't filterable or even sortable.

Not that I'm complaining mind you. Well okay, I guess I am complaining. I love BlogHarbor, and I think you guys are doing a great job... But you know me--I see something that I think could be improved, I speak up and voice my ideas.

Having the ability to shut off all (FUTURE, NOT EXISTING) trackbacks with one kill switch would be a wonderful short term solution. Please let me know if and when that becomes available. Smile
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 9:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for your post, Chuck. We are tracking requests for a "master off switch" for trackbacks and also for configurability for queue notifications.

As for individual Bayesian filters on a per account basis, I do understand how nice it would be but it is unlikely we would ever be able to devote the amount of resources that would surely be required for such a non-trivial project.

Again the best solution I can suggest at this time would be to set your trackback moderation settings to something like "Automatically delete if trackback is detected as spam, moderate all others.". Yes, the drawback is that you will receive moderation queue emails, which you will have to manually delete or filter.

We will continue to listen our users and hopefully we will be able to add additional end-user facing improvements to the spam protection system over time. The back end trackback firewall just received a significant update and is blocking the majority of trackbacks we receive. The ones that actually make it through are just the tip of the iceberg, which should give you some idea of the magnitude of the trackback spam problem...
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gristgal



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 209
Location: Mississippi

PostPosted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 6:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

abacquer wrote:

Quote:
... If I had a trainable Bayesian spam-filter for trackbacks, then I'd be interested in moderating them, such that the nonspam ones would be allowed through and the spam ones would be held up (without receiving emails). But nobody I know is even using trackbacks anymore, precisely because spammers have turned it into a waste of time.
<snip>
The bayesian filter information, unfortunately, would need to be specific to each user... my definition of spam is different than your definition. But bayesian filtering (a) works and (b) is well documented. My spam email woes ended the day I installed a bayesian email filter, and it's right 99.9% of the time, after training.
<snip>

I'm assuming that you're not a programmer (or analyst, as the best have been called for a while now), any more than I am (yeah, I can sorta kinda handle code, the same way that a lot of other people here can, but that ain't a programmer).

Please don't take the following as a lecture. It's merely an attempt to think out in words why things here are as they are. My concept of Blog Harbor may be erroneous. I'm just taking the clues I've collected from events of the last ~8 months (when I arrived), together with stuff John has said, regarding what they do and don't do, and trying to fit them together. It's more a function of how I (try to) understand the world than anything else.

I think your best solution is to find a real code-slinger who is young, good, and has dreams of a "killer app" to take on this project, to write the program you want. I suspect that you want someone willing to write on spec; i.e., shareware (you do realize that programs of that size nearly always start out buggy? Most people prefer not to pay for the privilege of de-bugging). Dare I suggest that you go to a forum or three where people who write code hang out (as opposed to ordinary, non-IT bloggers), and troll for interested parties? Your best hope would be for multiple individuals to do this, so that you have choices.

Blog Harbor is a services company. From what John has said, I've gathered that they are techs who operate the equipment, and have learned or been trained to do this and that. It's the kind of company where a real code-writer would be superfluous, given how modern software is written and operates. Because of various indications that they are running a "lean" operation (including that it's a young company), they simply don't have a budget for someone to do anything of that sort. I suspect that if one accidentally wound up working for/with them, (s)he would either move on soon, or stop writing code, as the pace of development in IT is still staggering. It's easy to fall behind, and less trivial to catch up again. It's not all that noticeable to us users, because of the care that's taken with most kinds of products for backward-compatibility.

The IT industry is now pretty mature (many would say "fully mature"), but I think (and somebody at The Economist agrees) there's room for at least one more big shake-out. Companies that write programs are either big and successful, or they're start-ups; the industry has long since bought or driven out everything else. As for IT services, young companies are well-advised to stay "lean & mean" for some time to come (which means we're lucky that BH gives the weight it does to customer service; I suspect that during periods of server attack - like right now - none of them has anything that could be called a life).
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 9:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for your insight, gristgal, it is appreciated.

I'm assuming that you're not a programmer

Actually I believe that abacquer is a programmer. Wink Though he would have to be the one confirm that...

I think your best solution is to find a real code-slinger who is young, good, and has dreams of a "killer app" to take on this project, to write the program you want.

I think that most of us who use software (web-based or desktop) eventually hit a point with software we use regularly where we say "Wouldn't it be great/better/more fun/more efficient if it did X instead of Y?" It really doesn't matter if that software is Word or a simple text editor, we all want software to work the way we want it to.

Sometimes you can find another software that works that way and switch to it. Sometimes the software has an architecture or license that allows it to be modified and you or someone you hire can change the software to work the way you want.

Ours is a managed service, and what that means is that the software is not something you download and install on your machine, so it's not something you can customize yourself. So unfortunately it will not be possible for abacquer to add a personal Bayesian filter for his trackbacks, even if he could build one or hire someone to do it for him, on the BlogHarbor platform...

Blog Harbor is a services company.

Technically speaking, BlogHarbor is a service offered by our company Rackshare. We've been providing web hosting services since 2000 and can host almost any of the standard "install it yourself" blog or content management systems.

While we believe our BlogHarbor system is an excellent choice for many individuals and businesses, we recognize that there is no "one size fits all" solution and that some users may find that another application suits their needs better. Some users who are comfortable installing and customizing web-based Perl or PHP software and require something that BlogHarbor can not provide (like personal Bayesian trackback filters) might wish to migrate their blog to another platform which can provide those features. We're working on creating a migration path for these users which will allow them to move their content to other systems. We'll keep you updated as additional options become available.
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gristgal



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 209
Location: Mississippi

PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Knowing you've got more options, that BH isn't all you offer or can do, may well be useful information for some of the people here who are bothered by this or that limitation.

By saying so, you've given people the knowledge that they do have other alternatives without leaving your company. I dunno about anyone else, but my experience with web sites and services has been that very few are as responsive as you guys are. If I were one who concluded that Blogware's limitations in some of these areas are just too irritating, I'd be looking to see what other blog software might suit me better, but want to keep you as the service provider.

As for me, I really like Blogware. I see it as the Mac of blogging software, powerful and versatile, with all the complications hidden from the user. What's not to like? Smile (Not that I own a Mac, ever have, or likely ever will; the premium price is too steep for me.) None of the areas where it frustrates me are that hard for me to deal with. I'd estimate that I'm probably another year away from traffic enough higher to make any of the problems really bug me.
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bryanska
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:33 am    Post subject: Would like to turn ALL trackbacks off - add me to the list Reply with quote

John,

Add me to the list of folks eager to turn ALL trackbacks off, even on past-published articles.

My Email inbox is getting pounded by trackback spam. Confused I don't have time to log in every day the rest of my life and block them.

In fact, I'll PayPal you guys $15 right now. That should help with someone's overtime to fix this...
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:48 am    Post subject: Re: Would like to turn ALL trackbacks off - add me to the li Reply with quote

My Email inbox is getting pounded by trackback spam.

Do you mean your email inbox is getting pounded by trackback notifications? You can turn off notifications from the control panel at Settings & Security > Publishing Defaults > General, scroll to the bottom of the page where you will see a row labeled 'Notifications'. Remove your address from that box and click Save Settings, and you will no longer be notified when there are comments have been posted or trackbacks are waiting for moderation.

Then just set your moderation settings for Trackback Moderation at the Settings & Security > Publishing Defaults > Spam Protection Settings page to "Automatically delete if trackback is detected as spam, moderate all others".

You'll be all set, there's nothing to be concerned about. Trackback spam may pile up in a queue, but it will never appear on your blog.


Last edited by john on Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:17 am; edited 1 time in total
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gristgal



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 209
Location: Mississippi

PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 3:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Today I discovered that "IeriWinner" is back, only now he's calling himself "AcientWarrior". He's also switched search engines to Yahoo, but he's still doing that

>HI! I've have similar topic at my blog! Please check it.. Thanks.

message. If that's not a fingerprint, I'm not sure what is. I had a mere dozen or so trackback spams from him this time. Maybe he's not feeling well? Razz Or maybe he was just picking more on somebody else.

As they say in the long-standing message boards, "Don't feed the trolls." So whatever you do, don't feed his ego by searching for him, or for his sock puppet. Just delete and go on with your ordinary business. (I wish I knew what it was that attracts him to my blog.) :sigh:

gristgal
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