Wednesday, April 25, 2007

They Found Me

For the last several weeks, I have not required Blogger's word verification protection for commenting on my posts. It seemed to be more trouble than it's worth, so I threw caution to the wind and eliminated it. At first, everything was fine. No spam comments, nothing weird, no problems at all. But recently, slowly at first, the spammers have started spamming me.

I don't know how they found me and decided which posts to hit. The most recent post was one written some weeks ago. I wouldn't even have known if I didn't have email notification enabled. But they're getting closer and more frequent, like some kind of spreading disease. To nip it in the bud, I have enabled word verification again. The other option would be to moderate my comments, but I don't want to do that yet - I might some day, but just not now.

I am not cool with spammers posting on my blog. Not at all. It's bad enough that I have to delete the numerous emails that make it past the filters everyday. It's like some twisted game of cat and mouse... one I am no longer going to play.

17 comments:

Bar L. said...

I'm sorry, Mike, but I will no longer be commenting on your blog if I have to use that annoying word verification.



just kidding :)

Anna said...

I hate that has happened. I dont mind doing the word verification thing! No prob!

kenju said...

Mike, I have switched back and forth between comment moderation and word verification several times lately. The comment moderation got to be worrisome, due to heavy volume and a computer that gets slow sometimes. So I went back to word verification earlier in the week. I apologize to my readers, but it cannot be helped. I hate the spammers too!

Anonymous said...

You almost have to wish spells concocted with "eye of bat and wing of toad" (lol) worked, so we could send the spammers straight to "fireside manor"!

Good luck with your papers. Don't forget to always say in at least 10 words what can be easily expressed in two. (I learned that from the late, great Sidney W. Head).

Unknown said...

Yeah, I've had the spammers start finding me again this past week. I've yet to get unlazy enough to turn the word verification thing back on though because I suck at being able to read the letters when they're all wonky.

Have a nice weekend, Michele sent me.

Lady Prism said...

ello' there Mr. Mike ( waving! waving here from across the Pacific..)..

Ye' but zee' bad bad spammies get me too!!..Sometimes they can be terribly funny though...oh' if you can just take a peek at my mails hee!hee!hee!...

Word verification can be fun....sometimes they even make sense (???)...like right now..yours is mumbling..."ZlGLuM!....see?

Anyway, I hope the spammies don't get you down...Needz' ta' fix dinner but dropped by to see what you might have here for me to read.

ps: looks like I didn't make it with "ZlGLum...so it's "udtymz" now..bwa!a!a!

carmilevy said...

I feel your pain, Mike. I wish there were a full and final answer: like castrating the buggers. Alas, not with today's technology.

I've enabled moderation and disabled word verifiction. I figure I'd rather inconvenience myself than a visitor.

Hobson's Choice, I know, but such is the way it is in the age of Internet nastiness. Sigh...

Bobkat said...

I hate the spammers. This reminds me that I should check my old posts!

MaR said...

This is not spam....Michele sent me your way :)
I can understand how you feel, I am still ok without word verification *knocks on wood* . Happy weekend!

Anonymous said...

hmm...wordveriification or no wrod verification I don;t think it makes a bit of difference either way.

Michele sent me to say hi!

Anonymous said...

I don't like spammers either, but fortunately Wordpress's AKISMET plugin catches most of the Spam. Still, I do have my blog set so that first posts from people are moderated.

Thanks for your comments, earlier, btw.

Anonymous said...

I got smacked with a post originating in Panama, about buying bongs and such. Not good when you blog in your own name and are a lawyer.

Here via Michele.

Cheers.

Shephard said...

The title of this post piqued my interest... it seems to happen with just about everyone... being found that is. I don't know how you escaped their notice this long.
Welcome to the club. You're in good company.

Michele says hello!
~S

Shephard said...

P.S. I saw the "writing tip of the day" feature in your sidebar and snagged it for my blog as well! Another reason I'm glad I visited.
~S

Anonymous said...

One thing I like about WordPress is it gives you the ability to ban by IP address. You'll find a lot of spammers come from the same IP addresses. Blogger needs to have this ability.

rashbre said...

Another recent intrusion is the sets of blogs which are pre-loaded with spam entries and which seem to some how send comments to a blog. I have has a few of these and a few through my visitors system and tracker.

Thankfully haloscan seems to keep most of the trouble away.

Best.
rashbre

Biker Betty said...

I tried going without word verification once. They found me within a week, ugh!!! Now I will always keep it on. I hate to hassle people, but I hate those weasel spammers.