Spam IP’s and blocking…

  • rander

    (@rander)


    20 years, 4 months ago

    So, a few weeks ago, I started getting comment-spam on my blog, and I quickly realized, that most of it was coming from the same IP’s.
    So I started blocking the POST-function for them, and it’s working. Every two weeks or so, a new batch of spam comes along, from new IP’s. Block them, and I’m virtually spam-free for another few weeks…
    But being ahead isn’t bad, so could you please add the IP’s you’re getting comment-spam from, so I can add them before I get hit? So far I have this in my .htaccess:

    <Limit POST>
    Order Allow,Deny
    Allow from All
    Deny from 61.178.140.26
    Deny from 66.244.236.129
    Deny from 67.79.104.113
    Deny from 195.39.170.102
    Deny from 196.7.0.160
    Deny from 200.21.132.131
    Deny from 207.195.241.155
    Deny from 210.0.211.153
    Deny from 212.103.211.135
    Deny from 217.6.164.96
    </Limit>

    This means that everybody can view the pages, but for the IP’s listed, using Apache’s POST-function (which the comments use) is blocked, so when trying to post a comment, they get a “403 Forbidden”. I prefer to do it this way, as blacklisting words can very quickly deny legitimate comments…
    Anyone got some extra IP’s to add? Maybe I should even post all collected IP’s on a page in my blog, for people to use? 🙂

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    20 years, 4 months ago

    I strongly recommend against IP blocking. There are too many internet users out there who browser from large networks that run under a single IP, such as college campuses, wifi-enabled retail stores (Starbucks and Barnes & Noble to name a few), hotels, office buildings, all AOL customers, and legitimate proxy servers. You may think that you are blocking one user from the network, but you will actually be blocking the entire network. IP blocking should only be used to break spam floods, and should remain active for no longer than twenty-four hours.

    Instead, I recommend that you use one of the many anti-spam plugins available, such as Bad Behavior or Akismet.

    http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins/Spam_Tools

    Thread Starter rander

    (@rander)

    20 years, 4 months ago

    Bad Behaviour and Akismet aren’t really options for me… Akismet, as I understand it, is dependent on another server, which I under no circumstances want my blog to be!
    Bad Behaviour is simply to poorly documented. The page says “it does this and this”, but everything in pretty vague terms. I want to know exactly what it does before I implement anything like that on my site. I really don’t care how happy other people are about it, what I want is a guarantee that it doesn’t block legitimate comments. An example: “By logging their entire HTTP requests and comparing them to HTTP requests of legitimate users, it is possible to detect most spambots.” Oh, really? How does a request from a legitimate user look compared to a spambots? Sorry, it’s simply too vague…
    The IP-approach, on the other hand, works perfectly for me. My blog is in danish, and I doubt that the average AOL-user has much legitimate reason to post comments in it…

    Mark (podz)

    (@podz)

    20 years, 4 months ago

    “Bad Behaviour is simply to poorly documented.”
    Install.
    Forget.

    IP blocking ? Next to useless against spammers.

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    20 years, 4 months ago

    “Poorly documented”? I think not. There are some human-understandable conditions listed here: http://www.ioerror.us/software/bad-behavior/412-precondition-failed/ The specific conditions are actually documented in the Bad Behavior files themselves, next to the pieces of code which carry out the specific evaluations: http://dev.wp-plugins.org/browser/bad-behavior/trunk/

    And, Podz is right. In this day, most spam bots spoof (randomize) their IP. So, the likelihood of you actually blocking a bot for more than a day is nill. More than likely, you will block some random legitimate user who wasn’t aware that his/her IP was being used by a spammer.

    BTW, since you don’t like Bad Behavior and Akismet, did you bother to look at the other anti-spam plugins, like Spam Karma?

    http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins/Spam_Tools

    grandmoo

    (@grandmoo)

    19 years, 6 months ago

    Test post.

    Pizdin Dim

    (@pizdin_dim)

    19 years, 6 months ago

    “I really don’t care how happy other people are about it, what I want is a guarantee that it doesn’t block legitimate comments.”

    Sadly, like everything else in life, there is NO guarantee. From personal experience, it’s a LOT more effective against spam than IP blocking, which is a great way to WASTE lots of time.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

The topic ‘Spam IP’s and blocking…’ is closed to new replies.

Tags