Interview with a blog spammer and more
The Register in UK has managed to get an interview with a blog spammer who lives in London.
Notice how he seems to know the other 7-8 main linkspammers.
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And here’s a post from an admin who admits to having turned on proxying by accident. By now it’s turned off, in case anyone is getting ideas. But his earlier post before he figured it out was very funny in a train wreck sort of way.
And here’s his pal’s post about it, and some .htaccess rules that he didn’t explain properly.
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And finally, an article explaining open proxies.
January 31st, 2005 at 9:25 pm
Search Engine Optimizers are blog spammers
The Register interviews British scu^H^H^Hblog spammer.
January 31st, 2005 at 11:54 pm
I just wanted to say I really appreciate your efforts. I too have attempted to track down the comment spammers, going so far as to create an advertising policy that legally obligated them to $2,500/day per-advert that they spammed on my site. Of course, this had no impact whatsoever, and now I’ve had to completely turn off comments on my blog,….which kind of defeats the purpose of a blog.
I hate these people.
I applaud your efforts, and I wish i had more time in the day to help defeat this scourge.
-j
January 31st, 2005 at 11:58 pm
The Register interviews a link spammer
If you own a blog, you have probably experienced it: Spammers who fill your comment sections with ads for Viagra, porn and gambling. Its the new /nuisance/ of the web: Link spammers. The Register has gotten a hold of one…
February 1st, 2005 at 1:52 am
Did I not explain the rules properly, or did I not explain them fully? Are you looking for more elaboration, or did I explain something wrong?
February 1st, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Hi Joe:
I didn’t understand what they actually stopped. It’s like you were talking to someone who already understood, and just stenciled what you did. The rules could be copied, but I would like to know how you came to figure out just those rules worked, and what they stop.
February 1st, 2005 at 4:40 pm
here is another good article on proxys:
http://www.linuxexposed.com/internal.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=551&mode=thread&order=0
February 2nd, 2005 at 12:18 am
Okay Ann.. I wrote up something on my other site with a more in-depth explanation. Hope this helps out. You can check it out here:
http://techgoesboom.com/archives/2005/02/01/htaccess_rules_to_kill_open_proxy_requests.php
I basically looked into my logs and then googled around until I found something that worked. While I understand htaccess files and regexs pretty well, I’m not yet quite savvy enough to write them from scratch. The first part of it was pretty easy to find, but the second bit about blocking CONNECT requests was a lot harder and ended up containing the first bit anyway. So check out the original source post I linked to.
We’re working on a perl script that will parse the access_log and block the IPs of individuals trying to use the server as a proxy. But our script will likely only work with users who are running IPFW for their firewall.
Keep up the good fight.
February 2nd, 2005 at 1:01 am
Thanks Joe, wonderful stuff.
I should say that I often use full paths instead of relative ones when linking to photos. Not sure that’ll show up in the logs though. I did see one full path in my logs recently. Don’t know why.
February 2nd, 2005 at 1:35 am
Look, a talking wart!
Interview with a link spammer | The Register Via Ann Elisabeth, Interview with a Comment Spammer. Sociopaths are often quite glib….
February 5th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
Thanks. I was just hit by the phenomenon for the first time … made in Bulgaria. I now look forward to regular visits from these people no doubt. That article was very interesting.