Post by kas on Jan 15, 2013 21:24:57 GMT -5
The Importance of Reporting Spammers
Posted on April 7, 2011 by Blog
www.rdc3.com/blog/2011/04/07/the-importance-of-reporting-spammers/
Posted on April 7, 2011 by Blog
www.rdc3.com/blog/2011/04/07/the-importance-of-reporting-spammers/
A lot of people, be it forum or blog owners or even anti-spam mod authors don’t really understand the importance of reporting spammers to the anti-spam databases. Owners usually find out the hard way what comment spam is, after their forum/blog is plastered with porn and fake pharmaceutical ads. And by then, all they want is some way to make it stop. Which is what the anti-spam mod authors do very well. They unselfishly donate their time and skills to write the mods and plugins, plus spending countless hours supporting the folks that are using them.
It seems like once an owner has successfully stopped the spammers, they just carry on enjoying their nice clean site, and never think twice about why their new mods work so well. Some of the authors are the same way, they’ve written a mod that checks and stops the spammers, goal achieved. But as many are starting to realize, blocking them is only half the battle.
Reporting spammers is just as, if not more, important as blocking them. You see, without the folks that are silently feeding the anti-spam databases… those mods and plugins would be useless. Having very little or outdated data is useless, especially when spammers can change IP’s, Usernames, and email addresses with almost every post. Even data that is 1 hour old… is almost to old. Because in one hour, a spammer can blast several thousand different sites, using hundreds of IP, email and username combinations.
Let me clarify something. I’m not saying data that is 1 hour old is useless. On the contrary, it is very useful, if, it is submitted to anti-spam databases. Data that is to old, would be in the range of 48 hours or older. And even if your spammer is in the database, report them anyway. This keeps the “Last Seen” times up to date.
Anyway, I think you can see why it’s important to report the little buggers. But what if the anti-spam mod/plugin you’re using doesn’t have a “Report” feature? In cases like this, you can do two things.
Reporting in a timely manner.
Here is where some folks really miss the boat. I’ve seen some wait until a bot has hit their site 3 or more times before reporting it. The old “3 strikes and you’re out” rule. The problem with this is, while you’re waiting for a spam bot to hit your site for the 3rd or so time, they have already blasted thousands of other sites.
Let me give you a very simple example..
Spammer X loads up his ads, proxy list, and site list containing 10 thousand urls to blast. These urls are of sites that only check and don’t report. When he fires off his spam blasting session, the bot hits your site the first time, you do nothing. Once the software has ran though the list, it starts over, hitting your site again, again you wait. At this point the bot has blasted 20 thousand ads. By the time it comes around the 3rd time… it’s blasted 30 thousand ads on on 10k different sites.
So, as you can see, the hesitation in reporting has left a boat load of admins to clean up the garbage, check his info, add him to their ban lists..etc…
One more thing!
The folks writing the mods/plugins and the ones running most anti-spam databases are doing so out of the kindness of their hearts, and are spending their own money. So if you like your site being spam free, please show your gratitude by making a donation. You would be surprised just how much it means to them. Plus… lets be honest. They are doing an awesome job!!
Here’s my favorites!
Anti-spam databases…
Stop Forum Spam
BotScout
Project Honey Pot
Mod Authors..
Snoopy_virtual
Gunner
Keith P. Graham
It seems like once an owner has successfully stopped the spammers, they just carry on enjoying their nice clean site, and never think twice about why their new mods work so well. Some of the authors are the same way, they’ve written a mod that checks and stops the spammers, goal achieved. But as many are starting to realize, blocking them is only half the battle.
Reporting spammers is just as, if not more, important as blocking them. You see, without the folks that are silently feeding the anti-spam databases… those mods and plugins would be useless. Having very little or outdated data is useless, especially when spammers can change IP’s, Usernames, and email addresses with almost every post. Even data that is 1 hour old… is almost to old. Because in one hour, a spammer can blast several thousand different sites, using hundreds of IP, email and username combinations.
Let me clarify something. I’m not saying data that is 1 hour old is useless. On the contrary, it is very useful, if, it is submitted to anti-spam databases. Data that is to old, would be in the range of 48 hours or older. And even if your spammer is in the database, report them anyway. This keeps the “Last Seen” times up to date.
Anyway, I think you can see why it’s important to report the little buggers. But what if the anti-spam mod/plugin you’re using doesn’t have a “Report” feature? In cases like this, you can do two things.
- Politely (remember they’re doing this for free) ask the author if they could add the report feature.
- While waiting, you can manually report them at the anti-spam websites or use a tool like Gunners Forum Spam List Checker.
Reporting in a timely manner.
Here is where some folks really miss the boat. I’ve seen some wait until a bot has hit their site 3 or more times before reporting it. The old “3 strikes and you’re out” rule. The problem with this is, while you’re waiting for a spam bot to hit your site for the 3rd or so time, they have already blasted thousands of other sites.
Let me give you a very simple example..
Spammer X loads up his ads, proxy list, and site list containing 10 thousand urls to blast. These urls are of sites that only check and don’t report. When he fires off his spam blasting session, the bot hits your site the first time, you do nothing. Once the software has ran though the list, it starts over, hitting your site again, again you wait. At this point the bot has blasted 20 thousand ads. By the time it comes around the 3rd time… it’s blasted 30 thousand ads on on 10k different sites.
So, as you can see, the hesitation in reporting has left a boat load of admins to clean up the garbage, check his info, add him to their ban lists..etc…
One more thing!
The folks writing the mods/plugins and the ones running most anti-spam databases are doing so out of the kindness of their hearts, and are spending their own money. So if you like your site being spam free, please show your gratitude by making a donation. You would be surprised just how much it means to them. Plus… lets be honest. They are doing an awesome job!!
Here’s my favorites!
Anti-spam databases…
Stop Forum Spam
BotScout
Project Honey Pot
Mod Authors..
Snoopy_virtual
Gunner
Keith P. Graham