Dealing with Spams

[crimson]

Hi everyone. My blog got found by a spambot and now I'm getting email to check trackbacks. e.g:

A new trackback has been made to your blog-entry entitled "Photos!!!!!".

Requires review: Yes (Auto-moderation after X days)
Link to entry: http://www.crimson.net.nz/blag/index.ph ... !!!!!.html
Weblog Name: ******************
Link to remote-entry: http://****************

Excerpt:
*****************************
*****************************

----
You have the following options available:
Warning: This trackback needs approval before it will be displayed
View entry -- http://www.crimson.net.nz/blag/index.ph ... !!!!!.html
Delete trackback -- http://www.crimson.net.nz/blag/index.ph ... !!!!!.html
Approve trackback -- http://www.crimson.net.nz/blag/index.ph ... !!!!!.html

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The *'s are just blocking the spam. I have installed Spam Protector (SURBL) but no joy. I would like to avoid using a CAPTCHA if I can. Should I upgrade to the latest beta and try Spam Protector (RBL)? Is there another option?

thanks
crimson

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Those emails are from tracbacks. You can't use Captchas on trackbacks, so the only effective mean against those type of spam is either disabling trackbacks, or try to use the Akismet-Option of the Antispam-Plugin.

HTH,
Garvin

[crimson]

Hi Garvin,

Thanks for that. I've disabled trackbacks. I dont' think anyone legit uses them anyway.

crimson

[crimson]

I appear to still have issues.

The following is set to No:

Enable referrer tracking?
Enabling the referrer tracking will show you which sites refer to your articles. Today this is often abused for spamming, so you can disable it if you want.

Yet I am still getting Trackback emails.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

This option is not related to trackbacks. You said you disalbed trackbacks - how did you do that exactly?

You should best disable them by configuring the Spamblock/Anti-Spam plugin and set "Allow comments made via API" to "NO".

Regards,
Garvin

[crimson]

Hi again,

Thanks for your patience I obviously confused trackbacks and referrer tracking.

I have now set the following as "reject" (rather than "none"):

How to treat comments made via APIs
This affects the moderation of comments made via API calls (Trackbacks, WFW:commentAPI comments). If set to "moderate", all those comments always need to be approved first. If set to "reject", the are completely disallowed. If set to "none", the comments will be treated as usual comments.

Edit: A few days and no more spams