Over the last few days, I’ve noticed a few spam comments slipping by SpamKarma2. At least a few of the bastards seem to have figured out a way around the javascript payload test. These have all been direct comments, not trackbacks or pingbacks. SK2 still works pretty well, as it’s catching about 20+ spams for each one it allows through, so I’m thinking about supplementing SK2 with WP-Gatekeeper.
I had some trouble with Gatekeeper earlier, but I think it was primarily due to the fact that I have multiple themes on my blog. (I also saw a note in the Gatekeeper changelog about a bug that blocked trackbacks and/or pingbacks in the version I was using.) I’ve upgraded Gatekeeper to RC4, and I’m going to disable the theme switcher (and my other themes). Then I’ve got to hard-code a call to Gatekeeper’s challenge routine in my comment form(s).
Sounds like a job for this weekend, since it’ll probably take a few hours to get all this done. God, I hope that You have a special circle of Hell set aside for spammers!
Well, it finally happened–SpamKarma2 finally let a piece of spam slip into my comments. I installed SK2 about 4.5 months ago, and it’s caught 268 spams out of 269 attempts (99.63% accuracy). It hasn’t yet mischaracterized a “real” comment as spam.
The comment which finally got through had a very short, grammatically correct phrase. It had a valid javascript payload, and the encrypted payload was valid. The spam had an author URL which pointed to a domain that was for sale.
I’m in the process of re-working my wife’s quilting website. (It’s so pathetic right now that I’m ashamed to link to it.) I originally hand-rolled some PHP and CSS for her. It got the job done, sort of, but I’ve never been very happy with it. After using WordPress here, I got the idea that it would do a much better job than my own pitiful code. So here’s how I set up WP as a content management system (rather than a blog server) for my wife’s site. This is my third WP install, and I’ve learned a few things from the first two iterations. I even managed to document my second installation which has been helpful this time, so I’m documenting even more thoroughly this time around.
Continue reading ‘New website for my wife’s business’
Hmm. I just left a comment on one of Nicholas’ articles and was promped for a “Kinda captcha”. I’ll have to ask him what that’s all about when we meet tonight. I wonder if this is the add-on for Spam Karma 2?
Spam Karma 2 rocks! Have I said that already? Well, not in so few words…
But I just noticed something. I wrote a post last night with multiple references to my own blog–in this case, I refered to two other posts. The first reference correctly generated a pingback, but the second reference doesn’t seem to have been handled. SK2 didn’t log it as spam or a valid comment, and there is no pingback comment in the second post that I linked to. I’m going to disable SK2 for a minute while I post this article, to see if both pingbacks are done correctly, then I’ll contact dr Dave and let him know what I’ve found.
When I originally set up my blog, I installed Farook’s WPBlacklist plugin to help combat blog spam. Then, a few days ago I installed Spam Karma 2 in order to take care of issues that were possibly being caused/exacerbated by WP-Gatekeeper. Today while perusing the management interface for SK2, I discovered that it handles blacklisting as well. I chose to let SK2 handle blacklisting and disabled WPBlacklist because:
- I want to use SK2 as my primary spam filter, and
- SK2 doesn’t require manual BL updating, as WPBlacklist does.
SK2 can even update the RBL when spammed.
This is turning out to be a pretty spiffy plugin! I get grim satisfaction from looking over the “recent spam harvest” and seeing the blocked attempts.
I read a post today on Nicholas’ blog which indicated that he was having trouble commenting on my site. I’ve had other commenting problems (1, 2) in the past which have been traced to my spam-blocker, WP-Gatekeeper. I haven’t spent any effort on the current problem, I’m just assuming that gatekeeper is at fault, so I disabled this plugin and installed Spam Karma 2 since Nicholas seems to be getting good results with it. I’m not sure what Joseph is using nowadays, but gatekeeper may be doing the trick for him–I found out a few days ago that he hand-rolled his crisp minimalist theme, and perhaps gatekeeper plays well with such a setup.
I’ll run with Spam Karma 2 for a while and see how it goes. I hate to think that people might have tried to post comments here, failed, and given up on this blog. I really have no idea how many people read the crap I post, but I know there are at least a few people out there with too much time on their hands. 
