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I knew this day would come

• posted by André Luís
• posted on fri, 11 nov 2005 16:30

Yes, finally, i got my first comment-spam. And they came in groups of three, to boot! Oh, the horror!

Now i don't mean to sound cocky, but i wasn't expecting this to happen, specially since i didn't write some sort of RPC-XML mechanism for comment posting, nor did i use an out-of-the-box CMS. Now, i'm still using an XHTML form, sending variables through POST method, but still, the names of each field aren't necessarily equal to any CMS out there, so i assume the spam-bots have to be a bit smarter and get a list of fields from the form, populate them, and finally submit them to the URI specified in the form's action attribute.

So you can understand my surprise when i woke up only to find three spam comments on some not so recent posts. They didn't show up on the site, but they were showing up on the Comments RSS Feed. A little tuning (three words added to the SQL query) and they didn't show up on the feed anymore.

Using a home-grown CMS has its advantages, but i'm not as invulnerable to comment spam as i thought i would be. I'm sure there will be more in the future, and they'll be fiercer. All i have to say is...

Let them come, there is one Dwarf in Moria who still draws breath.
- Gimli the Dwarf

↓ Comments

• cameroncaindesign on sat, 12 nov 2005 13:18

  I feel your sorrow... I had considered writing my own code for those very reasons but opted for Wordpress after using it on a client site and having no problems.
  
  'Til a few days ago - I got 3 spams too, no more since either? Weird huh?
  
  Gist was 'Nice site, life is good and Viagra' pointing to an online drug store with a made up domain. Spam sucks, except the Monty Python variety :)

• andr3 on sun, 13 nov 2005 15:20

  Spam comments were only one of the reasons for my decision of coding my own blogging platform. I explore those reasons in my very first post: Hello World!.
  
  Weird that you also got 3... and by the way... where's your blog? I only know cameroncain.co.uk, but i don't see a blog there... am i missing something?
  
  And yes... The only spam that puts a smile on my face -- or even make me laugh my ass off -- is something along the lines of a Lobster Thermidor, a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam! :D That sketch is hilarious.

• andr3 on sun, 13 nov 2005 17:14

  Actually, make that 14 spam comments. Today, 11 more. I just didn't notice them since they didn't got through. They're still in the database, but not on the site. That's fine by me. ;)

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