Today I installed a new plugin for the blog. It’s called is_human() and is the effort of Nick Berlette. The plugin asks you to respond to a simple question, before you can submit a comment. The question is formed via one of 3 methods: enter in a Captcha image, answer a simple math question, or answer a simple word problem. If you get a question you don’t know how to answer, can’t understand, or can’t read, there’s a refresh button and you’ll get a new question. Each question is randomly chosen first by type, then by a random selection within that type. It’s all quite random what you’ll get.
I don’t get an inordinate amount of spam, but I do get enough that this seemed like a good idea. Occassionally a real comment will get flagged as spam, which is something I regret, as I always want your comments to appear immediately, if you’ve taken the time to offer a comment. If this plugin reduces significantly the number of things being flagged as spam, I will take more seriously anything that is flagged, and attend to it immediately, rather than my normal mode of looking at the spam list once a week (or so).
FYI, while I don’t yet have a documented comment policy, one is forthcoming (thanks for the suggestion Dru). For the moment, I will note that all comments are the responsibility of the comment author, and not of the site author. As well, I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason I deem. Most notably, I will delete any comment that is a blatant advertisement for services. My blog is not the site to advertise your handyman, cleaning, repair, plumbing, pool service, landscape, and or any other business via a blatant advert in my comments. Please reserve those adverts for craigslist, or another similarly appropriate site.
Now, if I could just find a good alternative to my email spam. I get ~200 email spam a day, and it’s rather annoying. 1 in 5000 or so aren’t spam, and do you know how hard it is to diligently not delete that one? If you send me an email, and I never reply, consider using my contact form. There’s a slight chance your email was flagged as spam, and I accidentally deleted. My apologies, and thanks for your patience.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Dru Bloomfield 06.06.08 at 12:13 am
Well, Steve, thanks for citing me as the source of the suggestion, and for reminding me that I still haven’t put a comment policy in place myself, which I really need to do! Guess it’s time to wander over to Jay’s place and see what he’s put together…..
Steve Belt 06.06.08 at 12:15 am
I was hoping to wander over to your place and lift a comment policy, but then I saw you also hadn’t done it. Let’s both get this done before I post Sunday’s stats.
Nick Berlette 06.08.08 at 12:50 am
Hey Steve! Thanks for taking the time to add my plugin to your site :-). I appreciate this review and the incoming visits I’m receiving from it, and I’m glad that I could help out with your spam problems.
I actually just released a new version with some features that might interest you. Check it out over here.
Thanks again!
Steve Belt 06.08.08 at 10:11 am
Nick, wow, what great support. Thanks for the heads-up!
Dave M 06.09.08 at 10:04 am
Steve, imagine this for a second though… and you will realize that if they want too… they can spam you…
A Spam bot comes to your page to spam your blog, it sees a capthca image, or something like a question… instead of trying to figure it out, it simply scrapes what is there, and waits for someone to visit one of their “porn” or questionable sites, and in order for that person to get access to that site, they must answer what that image/question is asking them…
The program then submits that as the response, and boom, you are spammed… it is a great design that uses humans, unknowingly to get around filters designed to stop automated programs…
Now think about this, computers, using humans, to act like humans in order to gain access to systems… Red pill or blue pill anyone?
Nick Berlette 06.15.08 at 2:37 pm
Dave, I don’t believe that many spammers would go to lengths like that to spam a blog. They would have to essentially have one human per spam post, which would take a very long time. And if any spam comments do get past is_human(), there’s always the Mark as Spam button and Akismet
Steve Belt 06.15.08 at 8:10 pm
Dave, the problem you describe is why I like is_human(). Other blogs use one simple anti-spam question, and I’m sure the spammers are able to program the answer to that question into their system. With the randomness of is_human() and the huge number of possible questions, this has the potential of foiling any automated system.
I’m still getting some spam, but primarily it’s trackbacks, which don’t have a spam filter, but are always caught by Akismet. The few non-trackbacks are either from a really, really good system (which I doubt) or were actually hand entered. Regardless, they are still getting caught by Akismet, so these spammers are wasting their time.
Thanks again, Nick! Love the plug-in.
Dave M 06.18.08 at 5:56 am
Well the goal isn’t for the spam bot to “load” the questions… The goal would be to “scrape” whatever the challenge question is, and present that to a user on another site.
And I imagine that there are more users available to answer simple questions on Porn and Warez sites than most blogs… So it’s there.
The idea I talk about was presented on one of Google’s tech presentations… It’s the future of spamming… however, the is_Human() is a great solution, I was only pointing out that, if you build it, they will spam it.