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| Big PIA but I will not tolerate spam. |
For months now I have been getting almost daily email notifications of comments made in my blog from "Anonymous" that sounded like a real comment but always ends with a link to another site. Spam.
So I would dutifully check my blog, and the comment was always blocked by Blogger's spam filters. Well yesterday and today I received the same type of comments with links to porn sites and they were published in my blog.
I have long resisted using the word verification especially since Blogger went to the Captchas because it is a royal pain in the ass. Its not uncommon for me to have to make several attempts at them before I succeed. However now that the spam is actually making it into my blog with links to porn, I am forced to use the word verification to block it. If that does not work, I will invoke comment approval. I apologize to my readers, yes the Captchas are a pain in the ass...but I refuse to become a free Craig's List for spammers.
UPDATE 1-30-13 I read some bitter complaints in other blogs about the captchas. So I turned them off on my blog. Hourly spam. Every time I logged on to the computer I had 2 to 4 comments from Anonymous with a link. The other thing I noticed that may or may not be related was that my hit count went down. Does Google lower your priority if they detect you are being spammed? Probably unrelated.
I do have several valid readers who comment under Anonymous so I do not want to block them, sorry gang I turned the captchas back on.
I hate those Captchas, but I have also noticed that the spam filter is not working as it once did and I am at the point of total frustration as well.
ReplyDeleteOn a different note--I know about SAD all too well. For years I tried to convince BC/BS that they should pay for a tropical vacation once a winter but they kept on preferring to pay for drugs and therapies instead.
As far as those lights--my husband and I probably waste more money on electricity through the constant turning on and off. I leave a room to go to the bathroom or get a snack from the kitchen and the lights are all out when I get back.
Olga, sorry to hear you have the same trouble with spam.
DeleteDid you get the captcha when you commented? It doesn't work for me but I assume that is due to the fact I am the blog owner.
Well the Christmas tree solution works very well for my SAD which is why I don't really think that it is SAD. There just is not enough lumens flying off the tree, but I am a firm believer in not looking a gift horse in the mouth. If it works, it works, don't question the reality of it. Hell of lot cheaper than drugs or a vacation, which I usually find more stressful than sitting on my butt at home.
I wonder about turning off lights. The cold resistance of the filament is far less than the hot resistance. How much time burning at temperature uses the same current as the inrush from the cold bulb resistance of the start up? Same with the energy savers, how much time burning costs the same as one start up? You may be far better off to leave the light on when traveling from room to room.
Thanks for dropping by and commenting.
As popular as porn is you wonder why it resorts to spam. Just seems greedy. I have to use some approval thing to keep my dear friend Dave from bombing me yet again with how the children he never had aren't going to be in my classroom. Or some other snark comment about my deserving all bad things. I don't know if you have to type in a captcha to. Why is it called captcha? Funny name. Sorry for the spam.
ReplyDeletetoo, I messed that up....
ReplyDeleteCaptcha is a trademark of the evil company who invented the damn things. At least on blogger they don't have the messy blobs that really obscure the letters.
Deletehttp://www.captcha.net
Amazing on the above site, they indicate that some spammers are sending Captchas to porn sites. The porn user has to solve the Captcha for the spammer before the porn site will let the user view the porn. The spammer then uses the solved captcha to get into whatever site the Captcha was blocking. Captcha admits that it is a problem but a very small problem and quite expensive for the spammer. It never fails to amaze me the cleverness engaged by these people.
Yes your blog does have the Captcha Word Recognition enabled. Is it not a shame that so many resources have to be devoted to blocking viruses, phishing, and spam.
Sarah, thanks for stopping by and commenting.
I hate the captcha, but I know what you mean about the spam, it's terrible. Somedays I get over 8 to 10 anon messages! I think I turned mine on for a little bit but them disabled it again in a few days and I'm not getting as much spam. It is a PIA but sometimes we don't have much other choice now do we?
ReplyDeleteAlicia,
DeleteWow 8 to 10 a day. I was dribbling by comparison. One or two not quite every day for me. That was OK as long as they were not published, but now they seem to be slipping through Bloggers filters. They hit in the middle of the night and my blog has a comment with a link to a porn site on it until I get around to reading my email. If the Captchas don't work I will go to comment approval. This won't stand.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Spam is a bigger PIA than Captcha. I'm tired, and my brain can't even follow that twist of spammers using Captcha to back track and ?? who cares. People should put their cleverness to better use, but then... who am I to judge? I waste all my time making quilts and reading books!
ReplyDeleteWell Carol your quilts and reading are not defrauding people or causing anyone any harm, in fact with all your charitable work your quilts are helping humanity.
DeleteOn the other hand, people involved in cyber crime are very talented people who devote their intelligence and talents to harm and defraud people. Imagine if we could harness all that talent for good.
Imagine using your skills for signing and interpretation only for ill purposes. Wouldn't that be a waste of your talents?
Carol as always, thanks for dropping in and commenting.
It sucks that sometimes a CAPTCHA is necessary. I would put one in place too if I was getting links to porn. It sucks that is is soooo hard to read though! I actually started using a CAPTCHA bypass program called RUMOLA to read and fill in the CAPTCHAS for me because I found them so frustrating during blogging rounds.
ReplyDeleteCan you use things like playthru on blogger?
Alicia P,
DeleteI never heard of PlayThru or Rumola. I tried the PlayThru demo and it is pretty cool, you don't have to haul your computer off to the fun house hall of mirrors to distort the Captcha to read it.
http://areyouahuman.com/demo/
As far as I know on Blogger, Captchas are the only word verification. But I am using an old template. Maybe on the newer templates they give you options. I don't know. I will have to check out Rumola, although I find the Captchas on Blogger not too bad, they don't use those blobs superimposed on the letters. I have been known to go through a dozen attempts on the blobbly ones.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.