Thread

I really wanted to put this in “Features Request,” and I did put a more serious version down there, but what I would like to see is a module or plugin that would allow you to select a “spam comment” and rather than only being able to close or delete, be able to report it as spam as well. Sort of like you can in Apple’s webmail app.

Now here’s where I am not being as serious, since I don’t know the ethics or legalities of the request involved, but I would love to see a “Spam Hammer.” Rather than rewarding spammers who send their little bots out there to pollute sites and create links back, we punish these scum. EE unleashes a firestorm of pings to these sites, so rather than laying back and waiting for the traffic to come in, the spammer’s site goes dark and wonky.

“Wait, what happened.”

Then the mob whacks the guy for failing to drive traffic to their mexican pharmacy and Aruba timeshare sites.

I am surprised there isn’t a huge, open source project out there that adds in any site advertised by these people. Seems if the reward was completely removed, they would stop.

A Safari pugin that made sites appearing on this list invisible. Something. I still like the idea of killing their site.

Reporting these sites someplace, and poof, if proven they had a connection to the spam bots, the DNS record is gone. Or maybe, like Rico cases you don’t even need to prove they did anything but benefit.

Did you try the Akismet plugin?

No, I had been relying entirely on the EE blacklist, which seemed to work fine until I fired up MSM. I run fairly low-traffic sites, so am not usually overwhelmed by this, but post one poem or anything about money and you’re doomed.

I will look into this plugin.

Free is nice. I still think there needs to be something that fights back. Enough of turning the other cheek. A service that would render offending sites “invisible,” kill their DNS, or do a “denial of service” on the site would be great.

If return traffic suddenly plunged after engaging in this behavior I am guessing it wouldn’t be long before no did it anymore and the world could go on in peace. Oh course I have the solutions to global warming, conflict in the middle east, and high gas prices too.

Rather than rewarding spammers who send their little bots out there to pollute sites and create links back, we punish these scum.

Have you ever been joe jobbed before? I have: spammers sent out spam claiming to come from one of my domains. Luckily, nothing much happened; I got a complaint or two from some individuals and showed them how easy it was to forge the From: header, and that was it. Now imagine some sort of automated denial of service attack or similar. And don’t forget that a large and rising percentage of spam comes from compromised and virus-infected PCs. They should be using virus scanners, obviously, but apart from that they are not really repsonsible for spam coming from their machines. Yet they would be the ones such a scheme would target.

Reporting these sites someplace, and poof, if proven they had a connection to the spam bots, the DNS record is gone. Or maybe, like Rico cases you don’t even need to prove they did anything but benefit.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get rid of the competition so easily?

Ah, but I don’t consider spammers to be the competition.

And I’m not talking about going after the PCs with the viruses (though I really don’t have a problem with that either), but rather the sites in the links. I realize the domains credited aren’t the ones submitting the spam, but the spammers aren’t trying to drive traffic to particular sites through some altruistic motive. So rather than rewarding the website by giving it more traffic, this would somehow penalize the site.

I am guessing the spammers that “joe jobbed” your domain we’re sending the traffic back to your site.

Having your IP blacklisted for passing on spam doesn’t seem like that terrible of a punishment. Having your URL disappear into the ether because of unethical marketing doesn’t seem bad to me either.

Ah, but I don’t consider spammers to be the competition.

That’s not what I meant. I am talking about unethical company A framing ethical company B, as it were, and then let the anti-spam vigilantes DOS them.

... but rather the sites in the links. I realize the domains credited aren’t the ones submitting the spam, but the spammers aren’t trying to drive traffic to particular sites through some altruistic motive.

So, how exactly can we be sure they don’t have a more sinister motive?

Having your URL disappear into the ether because of unethical marketing doesn’t seem bad to me either.

Yes it does. Trust me, I’m a lawyer; off the top of my head I could come up with at least half a dozen reasons (applicable jurisdiction, due process, free commercial speech, contractual obligations) why this is a very bad idea. Slippery slope if there ever was one.

Oh, and I hate spamming as much as you do.

i got Joe Jobbed a couple of times this year and it wasn’t nice - a few thousand emails, mainly bounced ones, pouring into my mail box in half an hour and then silence for a couple of days and then they would go again. I read up on it and realised that it can be stopped if your mail server uses email authentication (I use Cpanel and can turn this on) - here is what it says.

Email Authentication

Email authentication is the effort to equip messages of the email transport system with enough verifiable information, so that recipients can recognize the nature of each incoming message automatically. Enabling email authentication will help fight the spread of spam.

Both of the methods below work to prevent forged mail from going in and out of your server. The great benefit of enabling these methods is to prevent mail from looking like it is coming from your domain(s). When enabled, these methods should reduce the amount of bounce messages or unwanted emails received when spammers “spoof” one or more of your email addresses.

DomainKeys
DomainKeys is an e-mail authentication system that allows for incoming mail to be checked against the server it was sent from to verify that the mail has not been modified. This ensures that messages are actually coming from the listed sender and allows abusive messages to be tracked with more ease.

SPF
SPF will specify which machines are authorized to send email from your domain(s). This means that only mail sent through this server will appear as valid mail from your domain(s) when the SPF records are checked.

SPF is the important one a many corporate anti spam systems check to see who sending the email and this will stop your domain getting blacklisted.
Ask your host if they have this on your servers.

... but rather the sites in the links. I realize the domains credited aren’t the ones submitting the spam, but the spammers aren’t trying to drive traffic to particular sites through some altruistic motive.

So, how exactly can we be sure they don’t have a more sinister motive?

In fact, most of the spam that has ever targeted my site has contained gibberish strings of characters, not even including a valid link to any site. I have never figured out what those spammers are trying to accomplish other than polluting my site with gibberish.

No, I think the best strategy is unfortunately borrowed from the Underpants Gnomes:

1. Receive spam.
2. ???
3. Bash in spammer’s skull with a crowbar.

As you can see, Step 2 is the tricky part.