Date: 11/28/06 (Web Technology)    Keywords: spam

Precedent-setting decision says travel agency that sent repeated cruise-vacation e-mails is protected by federal Can-Spam Act.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6138874.html

Date: 11/28/06 (Security)    Keywords: spam

Regulators, ISPs, governments and the police have been called on by the European Commission to boost their antispam efforts.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6139012.html

Date: 11/27/06 (Security)    Keywords: spam

An inordinate number of new terms have been created to keep up with the dubious activities of spammers, scammers and their ilk.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6138651.html

Date: 12/01/06 (WebDesign)    Keywords: hosting, spam

Hey there, who would like to have a 20 US Dollar gift certificate for hosting services with Siteground.com?

I am one of their customers and got 4 certs to give away for Xmas from them. Have a look at their site and what hosting they do - it´s quite amazing what they offer for a price of about 70 Dollars per year (50 Dollars with the gift certificate).

Just let me know your email and I´ll send one to you. Oh, and if they have your email, they do NOT spam you, promise.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/webdesign/1191488.html

Date: 12/02/06 (Computer Help)    Keywords: web, spam

Please pardon the interruption and borderline spam. Just thought there might be a few of you in this community...

Welcome to the newly created community for Field Technicians, fieldtech. This is a highly informal community, meant as a relaxing place for technicians to bitch about anything and everything.

For example:
* Working on a register that is on the verge of catching fire?
* Had to work a 24 hour shift doing overnight installs?
* Hate your callcenter/home office?
* Feeling like that PDA/BlackBerry is more like a house arrest bracelet than a technological marvel?
* Fall off a tower several hundred feet in the air?
* Got bitched out for missing your service level agreement deadline?

We feel your pain. Welcome to what I hope will be one of your favorite destinations on the web.

Yours,
ckline

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computer_help/717760.html

Date: 12/07/06 (WebDesign)    Keywords: spam

I use Matt's formmail script on a couple of the sites I host and, recently, the script has been abused a lot by spammers. As a result the email addresses associated with the form have been blacklisted by AOL and the two clients I have who are with AOL are now not receiving their form results at all. Instead I'm getting the rebounded emails (as the admin contact) with a 554 error.

I've read that changing the name of the formmail script to something else solves the problem of spam abuse, but is there any way to get AOL to 'un-blacklist' their form results that are getting junked?

Also, they're both using the AOL email client thing (which I'm not that famiiliar with) rather than Outlook, so the formmail results are having to be forwarded to their AOL email address rather than using a standard POP mailbox set-up in Outlook. I don't know if switching them to a POP mail account would solve the problem or not.

Does anyone have any advice?

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/webdesign/1193740.html

Date: 12/08/06 (PHP Community)    Keywords: php, html, database, web, spam, google

I've got an interesting problem that's stumped both the senior programmer and me.

Situation:
A user is looking for a company to provide a service, they find our site at or near the #1 position on a google search result, they find a company where they need the service done, and they send a request for a quote via a php form. The form processes this request, logs it into the DB, and at a set time, that record is dropped into a MTA. This is the problem.

`From: $UserProvidedEmailAddress`

Problem:
In an ideal world, this would be fine, but thanks to spam... this sets of just about every single spam filter I know of and then a day/week later we are suddenly blacklisted by everyone including our own email service provider. In the last two months we've had to call up the spam database companies and get taken off the list (after a day or week of them doing necessary investigation to find we are in fact not spamming). The next logical step would be to replace the from field with a real email account like `info@ourserver.com` and then put the user provided email address in the `reply-to:` field of the email header instead. But my senior argues that we will still set off the spam filters and I agree and I can't see how to fix this.

So to review:
There are 3 parties involved in these script generated emails.
Customers who provide us their email addresses via the form. We protect the email addresses and flush them after 60 days (legal reasons)
Advertising clients who pay us to get these emails from our top listed site.
Ourselves, all transactions are bcc to us so we can track initial user to advertiser interactions and make sure we are providing the product our clients are paying us for( customers and web presence)


Why:
My employers want to keep it as simple as possible for our clients to respond to potential customers, hence the customer email address in the from field. But that doesn't work because of spam.


Thoughts:
Also, we can't put advertising client email addresses on the site or make them accessible to humans because spam-spiders will get them and proceed to spam the client's.
My senior has written a working prototype for an in-site messaging system using rails, but the fear is that some of our clients are to lazy/stupid to use it... I agree, some of these people are pretty dumb.
Another thought would be to put some sort of mailto: url in the emails, but not everyone uses html enabled email clients.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/518711.html

Date: 12/13/06 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: spam

I was curious about removing my email address from spam lists.

Unsubscribe links within spam email don't usually work, and may actually increase spam.

I was curious if there was a string of code I could place in a reply to a spam email that the servers who SENT the spam might interpret as a dead email adress, and remove my address from the list.

Of course, this is all theory, as I have no practical knowledge of how this works.

Thanks!

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computergeeks/1010078.html

Date: 12/15/06 (PHP Community)    Keywords: php, web, spam

Does anyone know how to do a php code for an form that is e-mailed to you and has a word verification, so that you don't get that much spam from your form?
I have the basic form on my web site right now, www.cardeologist.com on my contact page. But, I have started to get some bots filling in the form and spamming it. Is there another way to stop this or a code to make you enter a word/phrase before it can be submitted?

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/522045.html

Date: 12/18/06 (Security)    Keywords: spam, microsoft

Microsoft wins case after arguing that a U.K. man hurt the goodwill of Hotmail users by selling e-mail addresses to spammers.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6144548.html

Date: 12/19/06 (MySQL Communtiy)    Keywords: php, mysql, software, html, sql, java, spam, microsoft

Episode 3 is here!

If folks have ideas or suggestions for content, please let me know.



You can Direct download all the oursql podcasts at:
http://technocation.org/podcasts/oursql/

Direct play this edition at:

http://tinyurl.com/yy7pgz



News

Download MySQL Turbo Manager Free Edition at: http://www.mentattech.com/themes/mentat/download.html



Wireless providers prefer MySQL over Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server over both:

http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml?articleId=196700062


Learning Resource

Artful Software's list of common queries. They also have an interesting e-book available, called "Get it Done with MySQL 5.0".

http://www.artfulsoftware.com/queries.php


DATEDIFF(), DAYOFWEEK() functions

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/date-and-time-functions.html

Promo

This week’s promotion comes from Geek Fu at http://www.geekfuactiongrip.com



Feature

Concurrency and Isolation Levels
http://sheeri.net/index.php?p=123



Acknowledgements

http://www.technocation.org

http://music.podshow.com

http://www.russellwolff.com

http://www.smallfishadventures.com/Home.html "The Thank you song" -- Smallfish


Feedback

If you have any feedback about this podcast, or want to suggest topics to cover in future podcasts, please email

podcast@technocation.org This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

You can also:

Call the comment line at +1 617-674-2369

Or use Odeo to leave a voice mail through your computer:
http://odeo.com/sendmeamessage/Sheeri

Or use the Technocation forums:
http://tinyurl.com/sc6qw

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/mysql/108124.html

Date: 12/29/06 (Security)    Keywords: security, spam

Security experts warn of a Trojan horse disguised as celebratory e-mail that could turn a PC into a spamming zombie.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6146321.html

Date: 12/30/06 (Javascript Community)    Keywords: css, html, java, security, spam

I have an old site thats getting spammed so I created this faux graphic security script
First: create several of those graphics with numbers+letter strings (this example uses 5)
This script hides the form (with CSS) until the correct value entered
if anything, it will slow them down and should block some bots.
Sorry the formatting is all jacked up - its a montage of old script an new :)

");
document.write("");
document.write("");
document.write("");
document.write("

HTML AND CSS

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/javascript/122818.html

Date: 01/02/07 (Javascript Community)    Keywords: php, mysql, html, sql, java, spam

I must have a bot watching my site, here is an example
http://www.tfcdesign.com/spilledink/classifieds/sifc002n.html

When I clear out their spam, it fills up immediately. Its kinda fun. Right now I have a javascrip that redirects their IP shows up. Apparrently JS doesnt work.

The scripts are all perl and I havent used perl in over 6 years :) This site has been self maintaining since 1996.

So, now I get to try and beat the bot.

I've redone the site in PHP and MYSQL here
http://www.spilledink.com/classifieds/electronics.php

so it isn't a big deal. I havent shut down the old site because I make money from both.

Eventually, the new site will be like Craigslist requiring a valid email and email validation. For this site I think I'll have to use PERL to kick this guy. ... or maybe just submit the form with javascript.

Is there a way to tell if a specific visitor has javascript enabled? I'll have to see if PERL can do this.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/javascript/122894.html

Date: 01/02/07 (Security)    Keywords: security, spam, google

Security hole that affected several Google services exposed the address books of Gmail users, a potential treasure trove for spammers.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6146669.html

Date: 01/03/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

Over the last couple of weeks I have been inundated with spam comments. I identified the culprits. Meet them, know them and block them. 1 Offence count IP Address Owned by 2 32715 82.137.247.131 & 82.137.247.132 person: Samer AL Nashef address: 1 Mazza Autostrad Damascus, Syria. P.O.BOX [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/meet-the-top-10-comment-spammers/

Date: 01/04/07 (Security)    Keywords: security, virus, spam

Cisco will purchase IronPort, a leader in tech that scans e-mail for spam and viruses, to bolster its security profile.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6147065.html

Date: 01/08/07 (Security)    Keywords: spam

Tech heavyweights are taking charge in a "brutal battle" for dominance among spam fighters.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6147760.html

Date: 01/16/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

I have experiemented with all the available WordPress plugins for comment spam protection including but not limited to Bad Behaviour, Spam Karma 2, Akismet and built-in WordPress features like blacklists and moderation queue. The key problem with all of these plugins is high rate of false positives along with some false negatives too. In plugins [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/the-big-void-in-wordpress-comment-spam-protection/

Date: 01/17/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

After being thoroughly fed-up with the state of WordPress comment spam protection, I have decided to solve the comment spam problem in WordPress blogs once and for all. I have installed an experimental commenting system which is designed to completely stop (read 100%) robotic spam (spam generated by bots and not humans) in all my [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/experimental-comment-spam-prevention-system-for-wordpress-blogs/