Tag Archives: spam

I Love Blog Comments Here

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Comment

But I hate spammers.

There’s nothing I find more rewarding about this blog than to check the comments held for moderation and find some comments from a reader that really add value to what I’ve written. These reactions are part of why I blog. I want to start a dialog with my readers, I want to learn from them and see their points of view.

Often, I find interesting blogs or Twitter friends among my commenters. I’ve even built relationships with commenters — fellow author Miraz Jordan is a good example — I met her when she commented on my blog years ago. We’ve been friends since then and even co-authored a book together.

I see the comment feature as a way of opening my world to my reader’s worlds. What they say gives me an idea of what they’re thinking, what they’re all about.

Sadly, Comment Moderation is Required

Comments on this site are moderated. There are two main reasons for that:

  • Spam happens. I use automated spam filters, but spam gets through. Spam, in a blog’s comments, are unslightly and unprofessional. They indicate that the blogger isn’t taking care of his or her blog. I take care of my blog. I approve every single comment before it appear on this blog.
  • Some people are abusive jerks. As I wrote a while back in “Why Forums Suck…,” common courtesy appears to be a thing of the past. Online, people say whatever they want to whoever they want, sometimes rudely and abusively. I do not tolerate that behavior here*. Rude personal attacks on me or another commenter will not see the light of day. (And, for the record, I didn’t want to use the word jerk at the beginning of this bullet point. The word I wanted to use was a bit stronger and far less ladylike. I’m trying hard to keep my language more civil these days.)

When I’m in my office or have access to the Internet on my iPad, I check comments throughout the day. I almost always approve or reject a comment within 24 hours and, if I’m sitting at my desk, it could be within minutes. So although moderation doe slow down the dialog, it does not bring it to a screeching halt.

Don’t Think You Can Fool Me

I should elaborate a bit on the spam issue. I also don’t tolerate spam masquerading as a real comment. I’m talking about comments that are obviously hand-written (as opposed to bot-posted) and do add something of value to the original post. But instead of entering his name, the commenter enters his company name. And, of course, there’s a URL in the appropriate field, pointing to the company Web site.

That’s spam.

I handle that kind of comment one of two ways:

  • If it has no real value to the post, I simply mark it as spam and delete it.
  • If it has some value to the post, I remove the company name and URL and approve the comment.

What am I getting at here? Well, if you want to use the comments feature on my blog to get people to visit your site or blog, you need to enter your name (not your company name) in the Name field and compose a real comment that adds value for other readers. Then, when you put your site or blog URL in the URL field, it’s likely to remain and you’ll get the link you want so badly. Consider it a cost of advertising.

I’ve disabled the CommentLuv plugin because it was attracting so many spammers.

June 30, 2014 Update
I’ve finally gotten around to writing up the site comment policy on a regular page (rather than post) on this site. You can find it here: Comment Policy.

You can read my complete comment policy here.

Got something to say? I hope so! Use the Comments link or form for this post to share your thoughts.

—
Note: In the past, I have tolerated abusive behavior and it quickly got out of hand. Do you want to see how nasty some people can get? Check out this post‘s comments. And those commenters are supposed to be “good Christians” (whatever that means). And please don’t think you can comment on that post here. You can’t.

Who’s Filtering Your E-Mail?

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And why?

The other day I sent an e-mail message to one of my editors. Within seconds, the message was bounced back to me with this notice at the top:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at smtpauth22.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net.
I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.

<[redacted e-mail address]>:
[redacted IP address] does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 554 5.7.1 Service unavailable; Client host [64.202.165.44] blocked using dnsbl.ahbl.org; GoDaddy – Continued hosting of FreeSpeechStore hate website on 72.167.250.55, ignoring abuse
Giving up on [redacted IP address].

My first thought was WTF?

I tried again and got the same result. Then I started researching. I discovered that www.ahbl.org is the domain name for the Abusive Hosts Blocking List (AHBL), an organization that apparently maintains a list of IP address it deems as abusive. The owner or manager of the site had decided that he/she didn’t like GoDaddy.com because it hosts the conservative “hate speech” site FreeSpeechStore. (And no, I won’t link to that drivel.) My editor’s ISP was evidently using AHBL to filter incoming mail.

I e-mailed AHBL the following message using my MobileMe e-mail address (since I assumed my e-mail account hosted at GoDaddy.com would be blocked):

Unfortunately, I host a non-abusive site and my main e-mail (not this one) is at GoDaddy.com. Your site is preventing my e-mail from reaching some destinations because of some link between GoDaddy.com and freespeechstore.com.

Do you really think this is fair to me and others in the same situation?

The response I got was surprising. Someone named Brielle Bruns wrote:

Unfortunately, your provider has stated to us that they will not enforce their Terms Of Service or Acceptable Use Policy. They are turning a blind eye to abuse and harassment, which is something we can no longer ignore.

To give you an idea of why we are taking this issue as seriously as we are, one of Mr Scoville contacted the local police department, fire department, child welfare, schools, etc of one of his victims, and claimed that he and his wife were molesting their children and others from the school.

Put yourself in the victim’s shoes, and then ask yourself weather or not you’d do whatever it took to prevent anyone else from being victimized by Mr Scoville.

I repeat: WTF? My response explained exactly how I felt about the situation:

I really don’t see why I need to be dragged into this.

I agree wholeheartedly that if what you say is true, this Scoville character is an asshole and a menace to society. But let’s look at this objectively on two fronts:

– One of the founding principles of this country is free speech. If Scoville wants to create a website full of hate speech, it is his right to do so. You’re attempting to censor him by acting as a third party filtering service. Seriously: what gives you the right?

– To punish him and (assumedly) GoDaddy.com, you’re punishing ME, an innocent bystander to this whole thing. Your failure to allow my message to be received by my editor directly interferes with my ability to submit work and invoices for that work. You are cutting into my ability to make a living. WTF?

I don’t care WHY you are taking this seriously. It’s none of your business — or mine. Let the police handle it — that’s what our tax dollars pay them to do.

I’ve issued a complaint to my editor and asked him to contact his ISP or system administrator — whoever is using your services. I’ll forward this message to him as well. You are stepping beyond your legal rights in this. I’m hoping my editor complains and your service is no longer utilized by his company or ISP.

The response I got back picked apart my e-mail message paragraph by paragraph, attempting to justify the site’s action against GoDaddy just because it hosts some wacko’s Web site. Honestly I didn’t even bother reading it. It was clear that Bruns was just as wacko as the person he/she was trying to harm — by harming people like me. Clearly, I was wasting my time communicating with this person.

So I wrote to the editor I’d been trying to contact, this time using my MobileMe account. I’d already updated him about what was going on. Now I decided to make a formal request:

I respectfully request that you ask your ISP or system administrator to stop using the services of Abusive Hosts Blocking Service. They are preventing me from communicating with you on my primary e-mail address, dragging us into some sort of war they have with GoDaddy.com, and simply do not care how much they inconvenience innocent bystanders.

The fact that your ISP or System Administrator utilizes a service that would do such a thing is unthinkable to me.

When I didn’t get a response, I followed it up with this:

Seriously…you need to do something about this. Whoever authorized use of this blocking organization is preventing me — and possibly your advertisers! — from contacting you. THIS IS DEFINITELY A PROBLEM ON YOUR END. Tell your ISP or System Administrator to shut that service off.

The woman who runs it is on some kind of holy crusade and she’s been very rude to me in our e-mail exchanges. I’ve lost an hour of my day troubleshooting this issue, only to be frustrated by her holier-than-thou attitude.

The day ended. The editor is back east, so I didn’t really expect immediate action. In the morning, however, I had the result I wanted. My editor wrote:

Thanks for letting me know what you’ve learned. I’ll be discussing it with my boss today and we’ll figure out what the next step will be.

I later was CCed on an e-mail message from my editor’s boss to the company’s ISP:

Below is a dialogue between one of our writers and someone named Brielle Bruns from an outfit called “The Summit Open Source Development Group” which seems to be at the root of our problem receiving some business critical e-mails from Godaddy based addresses.

In addition to blocking e-mails from our writer, I have had one of my attorneys e-mails blocked and missed an important deadline as a result. I have no idea how many e-mails have been blocked from our subscribers or [redacted] customers but I have to believe the number is sizable.

As far as any of my businesses are concerned, please IMMEDIATELY STOP using what ever “service” is being provided Brille Burns’ outfit. What ever dispute she or her group has with this Scottville guy, it nothing to do with us and her organization is negatively impacting our business and customers.

Please take care of this immediately.

I replied with a thank you message to my editor and his boss. The block was soon lifted and I could again begin using my regular e-mail address to communicate with my editor.

One of the subsequent messages flying back and forth between the parties included this comment:

PS: We just found this: from 2.5 years ago ref: “Brian J. Bruns convicted felon and owner of www.ahbl.org Abusive Hosts Blocking List AHBL” http://criminal-brian-j-bruns.blogspot.com/

The link is to a Blogger blog that purports to share documents about this person’s felony conviction and sexual deviations. (I still can’t believe the kind crap out there on the Web.) It looks pretty real, but I’m a skeptic on these things and wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that it was Brin’s nemesis, Scoville, slinging dirt. Seriously: some people need to get a life.

When the hubbub had died down, I e-mailed the ISP representative. I had his e-mail address from the message initially to him that I was CCed on. I told him I was interested in blogging about this and asked a few questions. He replied that he’d have to ask his boss about some of the answers, but he did state the following:

I can tell you, though, in regards #3, we were using the service entirely for spam prevention. We use a number of different services for spam prevention, and had no knowledge of their political agenda. As soon as we found out what was going on with this service, which was, coincidentally, shortly before [redacted] e-mailed us, we stopped using this service. I am very sorry for the problems this caused, and we would never knowingly use a service that had a political agenda like this.

Which begs the questions:

  • What “service” is your ISP using to combat spam?
  • How many important, legitimate e-mail messages have you missed because of a situation like this?
  • What gives organizations the right to classify an IP address as abusive or harmful, regardless of who else might be using it via shared hosting or e-mail?

If you or your ISP is using AHBL, stop now. The company obviously has a political agenda that does not consider the negative aspects of its actions. Why would anyone use a company like this to filter e-mail? Wouldn’t you rather get a little spam than miss out on important communications from friends, family, and business associates? I would!

As for me, I’d already begun moving my Web sites and e-mail addresses away from GoDaddy.com — but for other, service-related reasons. They still have not provided a satisfactory explanation to me about what’s going on with the “hate site.” This just confirms that my switch to a new ISP was long overdue.

On Internet Petitions, Virtual Marches, and Slacktivism

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Want to make a difference? Get off your ass and do something.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from an acquaintance who was spreading the word about Fair Tax and the Online Tax Revolt. It said, in part:

This email is for everyone who pays federal income tax. This is NOT about politics. High taxes affect EVERYONE. The tax system is broken – Help fix it! I have never sent such a large mass email, but this is so important for America that I hope you will forgive this one, short intrusion into your life.

I am doing these things
1)I am learning about the FairTax (See for yourself: http://www.fairtax.org/ )
2)I am showing my support by joining the April 15th online march to Washington; I can’t make it in person, but I can make it from my computer (See for yourself: www.OnlineTaxRevolt.com )
3)I am telling everyone that I know

I am asking your help. Please, please, please help. Learn about the FairTax, show your support for the online march and spread the word. Every American can help in this way.

In a way, I guess I’m helping him spread the word. But that’s not my purpose here. My purpose is to discuss slacktivism.

What is Slacktivism?

Slacktivism, as defined by Wikipedia, is:

Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism) is a portmanteau formed out of the words slacker and activism. The word is a pejorative term that describes “feel-good” measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. The acts also tend to require little personal effort from the slacktivist.

I recommend reading the entire entry. It includes examples of what qualifies as slacktivism, just in case you’re not clear on it. It also includes several links to other resources that make good reading, if you’re interested in how words are created and come into our vocabulary.

Internet Petitions and Virtual Marches are Slacktivist Efforts

This isn’t the first time I’ve received an appeal to join an online effort in support or denial of some cause. I usually get petitions — I can’t tell you how many I’ve received over the years. Snopes.com has a great page about Internet petitions that uses the word slacktivism. If you read it, you’ll learn that “signing” something online is a complete waste of time — for you, anyway. What it does do is add your information to a mailing list that the person who started the petition can use for whatever he needs/wants to, which might include spam or selling to spammers.

Read More Here about Slacktivism
I’ve written about slacktivism in the past, but I just didn’t have a name for it. Interested in reading a couple of my classic rants? Try “Support Our Troops” (1/23/05) and “Support Our Troops” (11/25/07). (Honestly, until today I didn’t realize these posts had the same name. They are, however, ranting about different things, both related to the brave men and women we’ve sent to the Middle East.)

Now I’m not saying that all people who start Internet petitions are spammers. I believe that some of these people really do think they’re making a difference. And I’m pretty sure the people who forward the petitions to me via e-mail think they’re making a difference, too.

But the brutal truth is that slacktivism does not get results. What gets results is repeatedly writing to legislators and sending it via snail mail (to start a paper trail), physically attending meetings and marches that get mainstream media attention, and volunteering your time and efforts at events that help spread the word and fire other people up to do the same. These are not slacktivist efforts. They take a real commitment to a cause that goes beyond five minutes of your time. They prove you’re serious and really want to make a difference.

Sending an e-mail message to everyone in your address book imploring them to submit their name, address, and zip code to a Web site to join a virtual march does nothing but make you feel as if you’re doing something — and possibly annoy the people in your address book who know better or don’t share your views.

I’ve Been There — I Know

I was a local activist here in Wickenburg for several years. I went to Town Council and Committee meetings and spoke up. I started petitions and got signatures. I wrote letters to the editor of the local paper and articles on my site about the town, wickenburg-az.com. I attended citizen action group meetings and helped them create materials to spread the word.

On some issues, we really did make a difference. When a developer tried to con the town into handing over our rodeo grounds so they could put a golf course on the land, I was one of about 100 people who attended a Planning and Zoning Meeting and spoke up against it. The developer was unprepared for the onslaught and didn’t have much to say in defense of his plan. Not only did the project stall, but the Town Manager and Town Planner who had considered the plan were subsequently fired. Now a For Sale sign stands at the frontage, offering some other developer the opportunity to build yet another subdivision we don’t need.

Although our petition to stop a housing development at the end of Wickenburg Airport’s runway was rejected on a technicality, we managed to stall the developer long enough so that he missed his window of opportunity. The housing bubble burst and demand for tract housing at the approach end of an airport runway dried up before the infrastructure was completely put in. Yes, he scraped the desert clean in his 40 or so acres of land, leaving an ugly scar on what was once pristine desert. But the project went bankrupt, leaving angry investors behind. I’ve heard the greedy bastard left town. Good riddance. I hope the same fate befalls the sardine-like housing project across the road and its developer.

Neither of these efforts would have succeeded if people like me had just sit on their asses, content to click a few buttons on their computer screens. It took a lot of real work, but in the end, it was worth it.

Don’t Be a Slacktivist!

Feel strongly about something? Isn’t it worth more than three minutes of your time? If so, get off your butt and do something about it. You can make a difference, but only if you really try.

How Some Bloggers Abuse Commenters

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And why this ruins things for the rest of us.

This morning, I got a junk e-mail message from a blogger I’d met on Twitter. And I’m pissed off about it.

How I Was Violated and What I Did about It

I followed this guy on Twitter for a short time and wound up on his blog, where I posted a comment. As anyone who comments on blogs knows, an e-mail address is required to comment, so I entered mine, as I’ve been doing without problems (or spam) for the past five or so years.

This blogger, however, was different. He evidently harvests the e-mail addresses from blog comments and uses it to feed his self-promotional e-mail list. The spam e-mail message from him arrived this morning when I collected my e-mail.

To say I was furious is an understatement. In my opinion, this blogger has violated my trust — and likely the trust of all other commenters on his blog. He’s used my e-mail address without my permission in a way that’s unacceptable. He’s a spammer, pure and simple, and should be subject to the same penalties as any other spammer.

(As if anyone’s actually enforcing the new anti-spam laws.)

Here’s the message he sent; I XXXed out the identifying information so I don’t send any customers his way:

Did you enjoy the free video on the 6 ways to make money on the internet?

How would you like to win the entire XXX System absolutely free?

All you have to do is recommend the system to a friend via a twitter to enter.

We will be giving away 20 full XXX system accounts between now and January 20th.

Click here to enter!

XXX Media Group | XXX | Lincoln, NE 68516 | US
Unsubscribe from future marketing messages from XXX Media Group

Call me an idiot, but I clicked the unsubscribe link. (They say that doing that often just confirms your address and spreads it.) The link sent me to the Bronto Web site, which is evidently the software this jerk uses to send his spam. It supposedly unsubscribed me. But it went a step further — it offered a complaint link. So I clicked that and filled out the form.

I also forwarded the message to spam@uce.gov, which is something I’ll be doing with ALL spam I receive from now on.

Then I went to Twitter and reported the jerk as a spammer there.

Why This Hurts Legitimate Bloggers

I’ve been blogging since October 2003. That’s six years now. My blog has accumulated thousands of comments from readers. All of them entered what looks like legitimate e-mail addresses. Are they? I don’t know. Other than a few notable exceptions when I wanted to network with a specific person — Miraz Jordan, who wound up co-authoring a book with me, comes to mind — I haven’t tried using them.

I don’t spam my commenters. I appreciate their input; they make my blog better. Why would I violate their trust and start spamming them via e-mail? Why would I make them less likely to contribute their comments to my blog?

So you can get an idea of how annoyed I am about this asshole.

Imagine a first-time commenter who happens to comment on this jerk’s blog. He feels good about adding to the conversation and is ready to do it again elsewhere. But then he gets spam from this jerk. He realizes that putting his e-mail address out there on the Internet can get him all kinds of spam. So he doesn’t do it. Maybe he starts putting fake e-mail addresses in his comments — making him impossible to contact if the blogger wants to for a legitimate, non-spam reason. Or maybe he simply stops commenting at all.

All because one jerk is harvesting commenter e-mail for spam purposes.

What You Can Do about It

The best thing anyone can do about spam is to report it to the authorities.

If you receive spam on Twitter, use the Report For Spam link on the user’s profile page. Do it every time you receive Twitter spam.

OnGuard OnlineIf you receive e-mail spam, forward it to spam@uce.gov. You can also visit the FTC’s Spam Site to learn more about how you can reduce the amount of spam you get. And while you’re surfing out on Government sites, visit OnGuard Online for real information about how to protect yourself and your computer from Internet fraud.

But whatever you do, don’t stop commenting on blogs. Most bloggers appreciate your contributions and won’t betray your trust.

PLEASE Report and Block Twitter Spammers

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It’s getting completely out of control.

This afternoon, I received @ replies from three different Twitter users who do not follow me, all of which contained spammy content. All three messages were obviously automatically generated based on a key word I’d included in a tweet:

  • Spammer 1 invited me to a “Free Procrastination Seminar” after I used the word procrastination in a tweet.
  • Spammer 2 pointed me and a Twitter friend to a site that sells face masks after I suggested that my friend wear a face mask when cleaning out a dusty hay barn.
  • Spammer 3 pointed me and a Twitter friend to a site that sells MacBook Pro batteries after my friend and I had a Twitter exchange about his MBP battery.

It’s bad enough that everyone and his uncle is trying to use Twitter to promote themselves and their businesses. But now they’ve set up empty Twitter accounts and are using automated tools to send out Tweets that promote their products or services based on key word matches. That means they could be sending out hundreds or thousands of advertising tweets per day, clogging up your Twitter timeline with their crap.

I, for one, am sick of it.

There are two things you can do to help stop Twitter spam:

  • Follow @spam on Twitter. This is a special account monitored by the folks at Twitter. Once you follow @spam, it will follow you back. You can then send direct messages to @spam when you want to report a spammer. For example, you might compose a message like this:

    d spam @spamguy123 is sending me unsolicited advertisements.

    The folks at Twitter investigate legitimate spam complaints. In addition, @spam sends out periodic tweets about using Twitter safely, so you might pick up a few useful tips.

  • Block spammers. If you get followed by a spammer or received an @reply with spammy content, take a moment to block that Twitter user. The folks at Twitter take blocking into consideration when evaluating spam reports and account activity.

You can learn more about reporting Spam to Twitter here.

Please don’t just ignore the spammers. Do something to stop them. Only if we all act can we get a better handle on the situation. The folks at Twitter hate spam even more than we do. It clogs their bandwidth and stretches the resources of their servers. If we help them identify spammers, they’ll help us by suspending their accounts.

Spread the word.

October 16 Update: A new Twitter feature makes it quicker and easier to report spam. Learn more about it here.