While scanning through my junk mail folder in Gmail, I noticed a new spam tactic: directly insulting the reader.

<img class=”snapshot” src=”/files/for_blog/20080609_insulting_spam.png” title=”Snapshot of my spam folder, with subject reading “You look really stupid kip.robinson”” alt=”Snapshot of my spam folder, with subject reading “You look really stupid kip.robinson”” />

I’m curious if this is effective.  I find it hard to believe that anyone would ever read mail that is obviously spam nowadays, but these people must be making money somehow or they’d stop sending this stuff.  My guess is that anything which stands out is likely to be effective in piquing readers’ curiosity, much like the “I love you” e-mail virus from several years ago.  But only if other spammers don’t copy the tactic.

Preventing spam comments is one of the most annoying things about having a blog.  In the past I’ve tried a few different methods to control spam.  My first attempt involved flagging messages as potentially spam if they had a bad referrer, came from certain IP ranges, contained certain keywords, or contained too many links.  The flagged messages wouldn’t be displayed until I approved them.  This method worked some of the time, but overall it wasn’t very effective and created a lot of work for me.

My next attempt was to implement a captcha system.  This has worked out pretty well, and I was surprised to find that it has been fifteen months since I started this policy.  Basically, any comment containing anything that looks like a link (“http”, “://”, “www.”, “.com”, “.net”, “.org”, “@”, “href”, and some others I can’t remember off the top of my head) would be sent to the captcha page.  This allows real humans to post comments with links, but stops most of the spam.  However, there was an occasional spam comment that had no links.  I’m not sure why the spammers would do this, unless they are trying to game systems where an IP is deemed “safe” after a non-spam comment is made.  In any case, I grew annoyed with cleaning up these comments, and I didn’t like that cookies are required if you get to the captcha page.

Over the break, I decided I would implement a type of honeypot.  I noticed that spam comments were always in response to my most recent post, even when comments were still open for other posts.  So I guessed that the spambots are looking for the first form in the HTML.  So I just stuck a comment form at the top of my page, and wrapped it in a hidden div.  No humans see it, but spambots do.

To judge the effectiveness, I logged any comments submitted to the honeypot.  Since I don’t value the privacy of spammers, I’ll let you view the log if you wish.  As of right now, 212 spam comments were submitted in 10 days.  Where it says “honeypot” means that the message was submitted to the honeypot form.  If it were submitted from a valid form but contained links (and hence, was given a captcha), you’d see “contains_links.”  But there aren’t any of those.

So now I have a system that is so far 100% effective, without requiring cookies and without breaking under tabbed browsing.  If this continues to be effective I’ll probably disable the captchas altogether.  Of course, the spammers could pretty easily overcome this obstacle if they tried.

Due to recent increases in spam comments, you will now get a “captcha” confirmation page if you submit a comment that has any links in it.  So if you’re blind or otherwise using a screen reader: sorry, you cannot post links on my comments page at this time.  I thought about doing a challenge-response thing (where there would be a question like “enter the name of that red fruit that starts with A”), but I decided this would be easier (for me anyway). Update: Now the title and alt attributes of the image are a question whose answer is the word given.  Not that I know of any blind people using my site, but if there are now they can leave comments too.

I came up with a list of about 50 words (mostly names of fruits, animals, musical instruments, video game characters, and songs), put them in Photoshop and screwed around with the Liquefy tool, and added some random lines through them.  I think they are all still quite legible.

I’ve tested it a good bit, but as always, let me know if you have any problems submitting comments.

Over the weekend I put in some code to filter out comment spam on my blog.  Most of it is Garrison’s code that has proven to be 100% effective on his site.  I also added in a few heuristics of my own design.  If you make a comment that it thinks is spam, it won’t be lost, but I’ll have to approve it.  But that shouldn’t happen unless you include a lot of links (most of the checks are on referrer and user agent).

I’m not sure why someone is going out of their way to invest their advertising efforts on the five people who regularly read my blog.  I guess you guys are really cool or something.

Today when I was logging out of Yahoo Mail there was an ad for a site claiming to offer a free PS3.  Since this was an expensive-looking ad on Yahoo, I figured maybe it was a little less sketchy than, say, an offer to transfer a Nigerian prince’s money out of the country.  So I clicked it, carefully read the terms and conditions.  Most importantly, I saw “Membership is free and you will never be required to pay for evaluation products.”  It just said I needed to evaluate some products- two “top offers”, two “prime offers”, and two “premium offers.”  Obviously, I wasn’t going to give them any kind of information that they could use to charge me (credit card number, bank account number, etc).  But my name, address, and phone number are already in the phone book, so I wasn’t too concerned with giving out that info.

So I signed up.

Then I went to look at these products I needed to “evaluate.”  The first group had things like Columbia House DVD club and Real Rhapsody music download service, where I would have to sign up for free trials.  Which would require giving a credit card number, but no charge if I canceled within like two weeks.  Well I wasn’t interested, but I wanted to see what some of the third-tier products were.  Check this out:

HAHAHA!  In theory, they would reimburse me for my fifteen hundred dollar purchase, making good on their claim that I wouldn’t have to pay for any evaluation products.  I think I’ll pass.

I got this e-mail a while back, and thought I would devote a blog post to it.  I have chosen not to present it in the 72-point format in which it was originally presented to me, and I removed mid-sentence line breaks; otherwise, none of the text has been edited except to interject my comments.  And to be clear: the bold/italic text is the e-mail, the other text is my commentary.

Think about this: If you don’t want to forward this for fear of offending someone-----YOU’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM !!!!
Well okay, start out by judging/insulting me.  We’re off to a good start.
Grammar Math:  Lesson 1:   (all caps) + ! × 4 = I’m so pissed!  This situation is literally worse than the Holocaust!

Will we still be the Country of choice and still be America if we continue to make the changes forced on us by the people from other countries that came to live in America because it is the Country of Choice??????
I mean, people from another land coming to America and forcing changes on the locals.. that’s never happened here before, right?
Grammar Math:  Lesson 2:   ? × 6 = rhetorical question mark

Think about it!
One of us needs to.

All we have to say is, when will they do something about MY RIGHTS?
Y’all don’t know what it’s like, being male, middle class, and white.

I celebrate Christmas...........but because it isn’t celebrated by everyone.............we can no longer say Merry Christmas. Now it has to be Season’s Greetings.
Last I checked, you still have the freedom to say whatever you want in this country.
Grammar Math:  Lesson 3:   . × n = pause to speculate on wasted life (for n > 3)

It’s not Christmas vacation, it’s Winter Break. Isn’t it amazing how this winter break ALWAYS occurs over the Christmas holiday?
Get out!  Is you fo serious?!

We’ve gone so far the other way, bent over backwards to not offend anyone, that I am now being offended. But it seems that no one has a problem with that.
If you’re saying no one has a problem with people saying “season’s greetings” instead of “merry Christmas”, I believe you didn’t watch much TV last December.  But please go on describing your plight.

This says it all!

This is an editorial written by an American citizen, published in a Tampa newspaper.  He did quite a job; didn’t he? Read on, please!
You need to learn when to use a comma instead of a semicolon, especially since you will soon express strong feelings against people who don’t talk good American.

IMMIGRANTS, NOT AMERICANS, MUST ADAPT.
I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Americans. However...... the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the “politically correct!” crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others.
So you think the country is more politically correct now than it was before 9/11?  I’d argue that we’ve shifted away from the political correctness emphasis that we saw in the 90s.  But that’s another issue entirely.

I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to !America.
I think you’re about to prove yourself a liar.  Before you go on, might I suggest putting exclamation points only at the end of your sentences?  Programmers like me might think “!America” means “not America.”

Our population is almost entirely made up of descendants of immigrants.
This is true.  Good job.

However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand. This idea of America being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity.  As Americans...... we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.

We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language.
..or Sioux, Apache, Iroquois, Algonquin, Cherokee..

Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!
Wait, if they don’t know the language, how will they ever read your request that they learn it?

“In God We Trust” is our national motto. This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan..  We adopted this motto because Christian men and women.......on Christian principles............. founded this nation..... and this is clearly documented.
“In God We Trust” didn’t start appearing on currency until the Civil War.  The founders had nothing to do with that.  It didn’t supersede “E pluribus unum” as a national motto until the 1950’s, when we wanted to separate ourselves from the officially atheistic communists.  Again, nothing to do with the founders.

As for the founders: yes, they were Christian men (can you name a single founding mother?), who were influenced by their Christian values and principles.  But that doesn’t mean they wanted a Christian government; in fact, they didn’t want the government to impose a religion upon them.  And this is clearly documented (see the first amendment, for starters).

PS: That’s called citing your source, something that’s a good idea to do after claiming that something is clearly documented.

It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools.
Where is “In God We Trust” on the walls of a school?

If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home.........because God is part of our culture.
God being part of our culture is different from God being part of our government.

If Stars and Stripes offend you, or you don’t like Uncle Sam, then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet.
Why stop there, why not move to another planet entirely?

We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don’t care how you did things where you came from.
Neither did Geronimo.

This is OUR COUNTRY, our land, and our lifestyle. Our First Amendment gives every citizen the right to express his opinion and we will allow you every opportunity to do so!  But once you are done complaining....... whining... and griping....... about our flag....... our pledge.... our national motto........or our way of life....I highly encourage you to take advantage of one other Great American Freedom.......
The right to bear arms?

THE RIGHT TO LEAVE.
We don’t want your wretched refuse anyway!

It is Time for America to Speak up
If you agree -- pass this along;
if you don’t agree -- delete it!
Is there an option for ridiculing you on my blog?

AMEN
This was a prayer?  I wasn’t even bowing my head.  You should have told me.  Now you’ve made me go and be irreverent.  Thanks a lot.

I figure if we all keep passing this to our friends (and enemies) it will also, sooner or later get back to the complainers, lets all try, please!
I thought you said the complainers don’t know English?  If so, at least they won’t be able to criticize your run-on sentence.