Another reason to moderate your comments

[Nathan Teodoro]

I switched over to active moderating of comments on TDA Training because I could have more control of what was posted (offensive, etc.). Another reason was to avoid link spam (I can't remember the other term for that). Here's another reason:


From Internet.com - The Network for Technology Professionals

Spammers Hit MobileMe, Google Blogspots
By Richard Adhikari
October 30, 2008

With new automated tools to help them, spammers are getting better at cracking CAPTCHA -- a program that protects Web sites by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but computers cannot, according to the MessageLabs Intelligence Report today.

One breach has resulted in fake blogs on Google's Blogger division, which may contain malicious code.

CAPTCHA -- short for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" -- is used by many Web sites, including Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and the Facebook social networking site, to protect their users.

By requiring visitors to enter distorted text into a Web form, it creates a bottleneck to mass mailings, thus making spamming unprofitable for cybercriminals.

Now they can crack CAPTCHA easily, spammers can get mass responses to their spams. They are posting blogs on Google Blogger that redirect victims to their own sites, and using fake Apple (NASDAQ: APPL) MobileMe accounts to send spam, according to MessageLabs, which provides messaging and Web security services.

Read the rest. Any thoughts on this subject?

[Adam @ Low Tech Combat]

interesting find. i haven't personally had any spam (except one borderline comment...) but its definitely worthwhile keeping up to date with developments.

Did you receive any spam or was your move pre-emptive?

Cheers,
Adam

[Nathan Teodoro]

Definitely. Still do. It wasn't pre-emptive at all. I hated having to expose my readers to the waste of time of seeing dumb or inappropriate links.

[John W. Zimmer]

Hey Nathan,

I use akismet... I find it does not have too many false positives and can be undone. I can also see key words and the number of links from the blogging platform.

The only thing that gets through is the few sneaky ones that appear legit and follow all of my rules - but akismet does catch most of those.

John W. Zimmer

[Nathan Teodoro]

Thanks. I'll have to put up a comment on your site and see how it works. Thanks for the tip.

[thefightgeek]

Yeh I get spammed a bit.

I just delete them when I see them.

[Steve Z]

Huh. I haven't had a need for this as yet, having had very little spam ever on my blog. I wonder if I'll see more of this in the future. :(

[Nathan Teodoro]

I just checked and you have unmoderated, and anonymous allowed comments, so it could happen. Glad it isn't - it's a pain. What I found is that the spammers even looked at very old posts and automatically posted spam comments there.

[Nathan Teodoro]

Here's a good example of why you have to do it (from The King of Combinations for MMA, Boxing, and Self-Defense). See the last comment (I've since deleted it):

[Karrie Bowen]

I definitely use comment moderation and have had some spam. Not much, though.

[John W. Zimmer]

I've had to put in comment moderation... no so much for spam but more for too much unrelated to the topic or plain annoying comments. :)