Date: 11/04/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

I finally grew tired of email spams, having to delete several thousand spams a day while fishing out for valid emails is no fun. Occasionally I deleted valid emails too in the process. I realized I was wasting valuable productive hours dealing with junk from cretins and morons (aka spammers). I decided to fight back. I [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/tired-of-email-spam-fighting-back/

Date: 11/05/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam, yahoo

Either Yahoo! Messenger sponsors spammers (not that would surprise me) or Myfreecamhost has found a loophole in Yahoo Instant Messenger. I am daily receiving half a dozen, most likely automated, Yahoo instant messages from various random email id’s on myfreecamhost. Two examples below: (11/05/2007 08:34:09 AM) kandy0002029@myfreecamhost.com: I thought you might like to watch my [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/new-spamming-technique-yahoo-messenger-spamming-from-myfreecamhost/

Date: 11/12/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: web, spam, yahoo

I am sick and tired of Yahoo Messenger Spam initiated primarily by Myfreecamhost and now joined by few new initiates too. Everyday, at the most inppropriate times I will get one or more messages from Yahoo Messenger asking me to watch some random female’s webcam on myfreecamhost for free (obviously scam). I was using Yahoo [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/bye-bye-yahoo-messengerno-thanks-to-your-spam/

Date: 11/19/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

I used to receive around 5,000-7,000 spams daily on angsuman [at] taragana [dot] com email which is publicly available on the internet. It was consuming too many productive hours daily to fight spam. I decided to fight back. To reduce the spams I first made changes to my postfix configuration with the aim to stop [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/6-simple-safe-postfix-changes-for-over-95-spam-reduction/

Date: 11/28/07 (Security)    Keywords: security, spam

Sentrigo CTO Slavik Markovich predicts more top-down driven initiatives to plug real security gaps based on threats from insiders and hackers alike. Commentary--2008 will be marked by strides in more coherent, enterprise-wide IT security policy enforcement. In addition to battling with security threats such as data security, anti-spam and...

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-177880.html

Date: 11/28/07 (PHP Community)    Keywords: spam

I have a form that people have been trying to spamalot, so I thought hmm some bad words should never show up in certain places, so if they are there it has to be spam.
Here is what I have:

$bad_words = array('href','http','url');
if (in_array($foo=$_POST["name"], $bad_words, true)){
die ('SPAM not sent');
exit;
}
if (in_array($foo=$_POST["company"], $bad_words, true)){
die ('SPAM not sent');
exit;


but I would get "parse error, unexpected T_BOOLEAN_OR in form on line" that had this:
if (in_array($foo=$_POST["name"], $bad_words, true))||(in_array($foo=$_POST["company"], $bad_words, true)){

and I do not know why (other than its been a long day and cant see strait).
Any hints?

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/599664.html

Date: 11/29/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

GMail has apparently gone bonkers with its vaunted spam protection feature or maybe spammers have finally managed to successfully corrupt its (naive bayesian?) filters. GMail is generating tons of false positives (valid emails being marked as spam) with no hope in the horizon so far. You need to be very careful with using GMail. I send [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/beware-gmail-goofs-up-on-spam-protection/

Date: 11/30/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

I like to say that Comment Guard Pro will be the final plugin you will ever need for WordPress comment spam protection. It contains 18 pluglets for protecting you from comment spam, an open API for you to write your own pluglets, detailed live statistics (AJAX updated) and more. We have combined years of experience [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/comment-guard-pro-wordpress-comment-spam-protection-plugin-released-for-internal-testing/

Date: 12/04/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

DROP (Don’t Route Or Peer) is an advisory “drop all traffic” list from Spamhaus, consisting of stolen ‘zombie’ netblocks and netblocks controlled entirely by professional spammers. DROP is a tiny sub-set of the SBL advisory designed for use by firewalls and routing equipment. It can also be implemented in iptable rules as explained below. DROP is [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/how-to-protect-linux-server-from-stolen-zombie-netblocks-100-pro-spammer-controlled-netblocks/

Date: 12/07/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

There is a widespread assumption by many bloggers that comments on old posts are mostly spam. There are several WordPress plugins to stop preventing comments on old posts, even posts as recent as one month old like, for example, Akismet. This is plain wrong and can result in losing many valuable comments. Such practices should [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/error-of-spam-protection-by-restricting-comments-on-old-posts/

Date: 12/10/07 (IT Professionals)    Keywords: spam

Foreign users are constantly experiencing problems with the access to the Odnoklassniki. Currently the social network is disabled for the citizens of at least three countries, i.e. Canada, UAE and China. According to the project management, each country has various problems with the access. Somewhere Odnoklassniki does not correspond to moral and ethical fabric, in other places Odnoklassniki are blocked as their DNS servers are suspected in spam sending.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/itprofessionals/71677.html

Date: 12/15/07 (Web Development)    Keywords: php, mysql, sql, web, spam

I'm not really proficient in using mysql/php, and in my website I noticed that either people/spambots are inputing suspicious words into my mysql parameter things (not sure what to call them).

For example, I use mysite.com/avatars.php?series=seriesName to sort my avatars. But I see people entering urls of a completely different website after the equal sign. The URLs are really weird ones, so I think they're either porn websites or some other unsavory site. I'm not about to visit them and find out.

When I try entering a random thing after the equal sign, or a website url after the equal sing, nothing seems to happen. Except it returns an empty page. So is this something I should worry about?

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/webdev/453045.html

Date: 05/22/07 (Security)    Keywords: spam

Internet law expert Venkat Balasubramani says new legal limits could crimp future moves to sue spammers. The last six months have not been particularly kind to the antispam community. Late last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit limited the reach of...

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2010-9588_22-6185501.html

Date: 12/19/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

I receive different kind of requests on my contact form, some genuine business requests, many thank you notes and few lame attempts to spam. Today, however I received a rather strange request through my contact form: mamdooh wrote: i want hot and nice girl IP: 81.25.229.180 I am not sure, what gave this dude the idea that I [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/guess-what-request-i-received-on-my-contact-form/

Date: 12/20/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

Ever since we installed Comment Guard, anti comment-spam plugin on this blog, it stopped over 1 millon spam comments (1001011 spam comments were blocked by Angsuman’s Comment Guard plugin in 335 days 8 hours 38 minutes. 99.338 % of the comments received during this time were spam.) so far (look in the right sidebar for [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/comment-guard-pro-over-1-million-comment-spam-blocked/

Date: 12/20/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: html, spam

Akismet continues to get in spams approved these days while sometimes rejecting valid comments on my blog. To give you a small sample, here are some of the comments which passed through Akismet plugin today - Note: Adult stuff ahead… you have been warned. Name: Anonymous | URL: vorginfilms . hitcoat . cn / thons-and-ass-and-voyeur . html [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/look-what-akismet-approved-today/

Date: 12/21/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

I’ve got mail is a witty take on spam from Richter Scales. It is a 2007 CARA Nominee in Best Humor Song category. Listen to find how spam gives meaning in life, not to mention three additional inches and more. Share This

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/song-witty-take-on-spam-ive-got-mail/

Date: 12/27/07 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam

My first Facebook spam: Subject: Mi Chai invited you to join the group “I’M A CHRISTIAN..AND I’M PROUD TO SAY IT!!”… Mi invited you to join the Facebook group “I’M A CHRISTIAN..AND I’M PROUD TO SAY IT!!”. Mi says, “Join this group! See www . patientking . blogspot . com and leave me a msg on whether u [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/my-first-facebook-spam/

Date: 01/04/08 (Security)    Keywords: spam

A federal grand jury indicts a Michigan man dubbed the "spam king," and 10 others, in an international illegal bulk e-mailing and stock fraud scheme. A federal grand jury in Detroit has indicted a Michigan man dubbed the "spam king," and 10 others, in an international illegal...

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6224568.html

Date: 01/09/08 (Java Web)    Keywords: spam, google

Google dutifully provides a forum for each product / API they launch. They also graciously decided to display 3 recent articles from their forum on their highly ranked product page. It appears that the forums are not actively monitored by Google staff as they are already being abused for spamming. Here is an example (click [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/how-google-product-api-pages-can-be-spammed/