Comment Spam...

Mike Lane · February 21, 2006

Anyone else get bombarded with comment spam recently. I was working on the site when it happend. I got 11 spam comments (poker 838 or something) in the span of about a minute to 11 different images and galleries. I have comment approval turned on so they didn't get through, and since it was 11 it was a minor annoyance, but imagine if it were hundreds or thousands.

Short of hiding comments with CSS, there isn't a simple way to disable comments site-wide. Plus if someone is using a script, hiding it with CSS may not do anything anyway.

I wonder if Smugmug is working on some way to prevent this kind of thing from happening like using a captcha or something.

Mike Lane · February 21, 2006

Well @#$%, it appears that I've been targeted. I'm up to 110 spam comments. I guess I have to go through all of my galleries and disable the comments one by one.

#@$%!!!!!

... Okay, found the bulk setting. What a freaking pain. Now I have to go in and delete all those comments 1 by 1.

quagmire321 · February 21, 2006

Me too...
Yes, Mike. I am having the same problem here... nearly 100 comment spams for the past one hour.

Emailed help but still no reply from them.

rutt · February 21, 2006

I'm getting deluged by them too. All from poker something or another. Maybe it's finding them by google or something. I'm getting 100s.

I really hate to have to turn off comments. Is there some way to control WHO is allowed to comment? Maybe require a registration step of some sort?

bwg · February 21, 2006

513 in the past 24 hours for me.

lovely.

edit: getting 1 about every 6 seconds right now.

rainforest1155 · February 21, 2006

Had the same spamer you had. Got 60 - then I turned on comment approval, but even though I first thought it stopped, it didn't. [stuff about an IP that visited my site shortly before the attack removed - was just a regular visitor]
You can relavtively easy delete them in the control panel with a single click, but still it's a pain in the neck.
What about introducing those security mechanisms where one has to type in the characters that are on a small image created by the server in order to submit a comment? I haven't had trouble before, but I don't know what else could effectively prohibit the abuse.

Sebastian

EDIT: While typing this I got another 110!!!! HELP!!! I want to keep the comment function though!

Cammo · February 21, 2006

Oh no... Spammers hit my comments...
Well, anyone had any spammers hitting their comments section?? Have a look at http://camlaird.smugmug.com/gallery/1182609/3/55355328/Medium - How can I globally turn off comments, I would love to keep it but this could be a major problem - I had the first about two hours ago and now just got another 4. Any help?

Cammo · February 21, 2006

Cammo wrote:

Well, anyone had any spammers hitting their comments section?? Have a look at http://camlaird.smugmug.com/gallery/1182609/3/55355328/Medium - How can I globally turn off comments, I would love to keep it but this could be a major problem - I had the first about two hours ago and now just got another 4. Any help?

I am a fool, should have had a search first and I posted in the wrong forum - sorry!!! Anyway, I am going to manually turn off the comments... Bummer!

bwg · February 21, 2006

rainforest1155 wrote:

Had the same spamer you had. Got 60 - then I turned on comment approval, but even though I first thought it stopped, it didn't. Do you have any kind of logging on your homepage? The only visitor before the whole thing started was:

<snip>

I don't know if they've any connection with what's going on here. Anyone logged the same visitor?

You can relavtively easy delete them in the control panel with a single click, but still it's a pain in the neck.
What about introducing those security mechanisms where one has to type in the characters that are on a small image created by the server in order to submit a comment? I haven't had trouble before, but I don't know what else could effectively prohibit the abuse.

Sebastian

EDIT: While typing this I got another 110!!!! HELP!!! I want to keep the comment function though!

unfortunately, i cant confirm your guy...my stats for today arent up yet.

whoever it is though should be fairly easy for sm to track down, considering the volume that these things are coming in.

also should be easy peasy to bulk purge since they all have the same name. i wouldnt waste your time deleting these by hand, you wont be able to keep ahead of the new ones showing up right now. I would think that given SM's history, they'll have these out of the system right quick.

bwg · February 21, 2006

i just added a sitewide password to stop the bleeding right now.

gonna go play some poker until this thing blows over...

rainforest1155 · February 21, 2006

bigwebguy wrote:

also should be easy peasy to bulk purge since they all have the same name. i wouldnt waste your time deleting these by hand, you wont be able to keep ahead of the new ones showing up right now. I would think that given SM's history, they'll have these out of the system right quick.

Your probably right, I'll stop thinking about them and turn off the mail notification for comments...that goes on my nerves and pretty much annoys me! Man first I was happy that I got comment notifications in my mail, but as I saw the number my hopes decreased a lot and I didn't really want to look at it.

Sebastian

EDIT: I wonder if this guy also messes with our bandwith stats.

rainforest1155 · February 21, 2006

bigwebguy wrote:

i just added a sitewide password to stop the bleeding right now.

gonna go play some poker until this thing blows over...

Does this help when he's already in the site?

bwg · February 21, 2006

rainforest1155 wrote:

EDIT: I wonder if this guy also messes with our bandwith stats.

remember this thread?

Francois · February 21, 2006

Yup, the poker freak found my Smugmug pages as too.
When I blocked comments on one gallery, they started attacking another one.

My 'new NASA solution' applies here. If we catch them, stuff them in an old Saturn 5 rocket and shoot them into the universe.... they're not worth feeding in a prison

Now, how to solve this!?? Changing the settings of ALL my galleries !!?? Don't have time for that !! !!! Grrr......

Francois

Mike Lane wrote:

Anyone else get bombarded with comment spam recently. I was working on the site when it happend. I got 11 spam comments (poker 838 or something) in the span of about a minute to 11 different images and galleries. I have comment approval turned on so they didn't get through, and since it was 11 it was a minor annoyance, but imagine if it were hundreds or thousands.

Short of hiding comments with CSS, there isn't a simple way to disable comments site-wide. Plus if someone is using a script, hiding it with CSS may not do anything anyway.

I wonder if Smugmug is working on some way to prevent this kind of thing from happening like using a captcha or something.

bwg · February 21, 2006

bigwebguy wrote:

i just added a sitewide password to stop the bleeding right now.

ok, even with a sitewide password, i'm still getting comments. am i missing something? how is this happening?

Francois · February 21, 2006

bigwebguy wrote:

ok, even with a sitewide password, i'm still getting comments. am i missing something? how is this happening?

It is a 'bot' and it is smarter than SM's software

rainforest1155 · February 21, 2006

bigwebguy wrote:

remember this thread?

Opps, I did forget about this one. Gotta have a look into this again.

Sebastian

rainforest1155 · February 21, 2006

bigwebguy wrote:

ok, even with a sitewide password, i'm still getting comments. am i missing something? how is this happening?

Same here for me...

At least the mail notifications have slowly stopped after I turned it off 15min ago or so.

Sebastian

DigitalTasmania · February 21, 2006

::: Captcha - How do we turn it on? :::
My pro site is being slammed with comment spam - causing great difficulty.

I'm unable to figure out how to turn on comment "Captcha", or any other basic and essential comment SPAM controls for my smugmug site.

What am I missing?

Cheers & thanks from Tasmania,

Thomas

Francois · February 21, 2006

rainforest1155 wrote:

Same here for me...
At least the mail notifications have slowly stopped after I turned it off 15min ago or so.

Sebastian

When I turn 'comments' off it seems to stop, but goes to another gallery.....

Matthew Saville · February 21, 2006

I'm getting spammed too. 17 comments in the last 3 hours. Ben, can't you declare martial law or something?!? Hehe.

I think they may have capped it off though, things seem to have died down in the past few minutes. Not holding my breath though. At least, here's a tip:

Don't bother going into your individual galleries to try and hunt down each comment to delete it, just go into your control panel and there should be a link to view all your comments. It's slow or fast depending on your internet connection, but it's just a two click back and forth kinda thing so it shouldn't be that hard for someone who got hit with only a few... Hopefully SM can help people like Mike who've got over a hundred!

-Matt-

bwg · February 21, 2006

DigitalTasmania wrote:

My pro site is being slammed with comment spam - causing great difficulty.

I'm unable to figure out how to turn on comment "Captcha", or any other basic and essential comment SPAM controls for my smugmug site.

What am I missing?

Cheers & thanks from Tasmania,

Thomas

go to your control panel and click on the number next to comments.

on the next screen in the top right there is a button to turn on comment approval.

this will at least make it so the comments dont show up on your site.

bwg · February 21, 2006

Matthew Saville wrote:

... Hopefully SM can help people like Mike who've got over a hundred!

1 every 6 seconds at one point.

rainforest1155 · February 21, 2006

Matthew Saville wrote:

I'm getting spammed too. 17 comments in the last 3 hours. Ben, can't you declare martial law or something?!? Hehe.

Consider yourself lucky. As Mike and bigwebguy I got a lot. About 300 in 3 hours with big brakes in between.

I don't bother deleting them anymore and I hope for Andy getting out of his bed in order to alarm the rest of the SM team! Not that I'm not granting him his beauty sleep, but we've clearly a situation here.

Sebastian

rainforest1155 · February 21, 2006

Francois wrote:

When I turn 'comments' off it seems to stop, but goes to another gallery.....

Yeah, haven't tried that. I just turned off the mails I was getting from smugmug telling me that I've got a new comment. That was really annoying.

Sebastian

EDIT: Looks like the mailserver is still busy as some old notifications still keep coming in. Hope SM doesn't get declared as a spamer too by some ISPs.

Chris_S · February 21, 2006

I guess I'm lucky I've only received two poker spam comments.

JamesJWeg · February 21, 2006

I just got hit a few min ago. :boid

James.

DigitalTasmania · February 21, 2006

bigwebguy wrote:

go to your control panel and click on the number next to comments.

on the next screen in the top right there is a button to turn on comment approval.

this will at least make it so the comments dont show up on your site.

Thanks 4 the quick reply BWG.

I'm aware of the comment moderation control and already use it.

I'm getting 100 comments and notification emails at a time - and having to manually delete each comment one-by-one.

I'm asking about SPAM control - like Captcha - how do we turn that on?

Cheers n thanks for your efforts,

Thomas in Tassie

JamesJWeg · February 21, 2006

I would like to see some word from SM on this one, should we kill them all ourselves? Mine started at 2:51 and I am still getting them right now.

I am running statcounter and not seeing any use at the time I am getting them.

James.

bwg · February 21, 2006

DigitalTasmania wrote:

Thanks 4 the quick reply BWG.

I'm aware of the comment moderation control and already use it.

I'm getting 100 comments and notification emails at a time - and having to manually delete each comment one-by-one.

I'm asking about SPAM control - like Captcha - how do we turn that on?

Cheers n thanks for your efforts,

Thomas in Tassie

best thing to do now is turn of email notification and weather the storm until the SM folks get things under control.

peestandingup · February 21, 2006

Damn poker bastard. OK, here is what im finding out. I have my image comment button (not the gallery comment button) and comments left by others invisible by using:

#imageCommentSummary {display: none;}

#comments {display: none;}

The bastard can still leave comments, but they wont show up on your page. Also, I have my email notifactions turned off in the meantime. Turning off your gallery comments from within the customize gallery options or enabling comment approval is kinda useless.

Comment Spam...

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